Androgens are indicated in MALES for replacement therapy in conditions associated with a deficiency or absence of endogenous testosterone:
*Primary hypogonadism (congenita or acquired) — Testicular failure due to cryptohidism, bilateral torsion, orchitis, vanishing testis syndrome, or orchidectomy.
*Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (congenital or acquired) — Gonadotropin or luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) deficiency, or pituitary-hypothalamic injury from tumors, trauma, or radiation.
*Androgens may be used to stimulate puberty in carefully selected males with clearly delayed puberty.
Androgens may be indicated secondarily in WOMEN with advancing inoperable metastatic (skeletal) mammary cancer who are 1 to 5 years postmenopausal. Primary goals of therapy in these women include ablation of the ovaries. Other methods of counteracting estrogen activity are adrenalectomy, hypophysectomy, and/or antiestrogen therapy. This treatment has also been used in premenopausal women with breast cancer who have benefitted from oophorectomy and are considered to have a hormone-responsive tumor. Judgment concerning androgen therapy should be made by an oncologist with expertise in this field.
