Charles Brenton Huggins
Charles Brenton Huggins was a Canadian-American physician, physiologist and cancer researcher at the University of Chicago specializing in prostate cancer. He was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering in 1941 that hormones could be used to control the spread of some cancers. This was the first discovery that showed that cancer could be controlled by chemicals.Early life and education
Huggins was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He graduated from Acadia University with a BA degree in 1920. He went on to study medicine at Harvard Medical School and received his MD degree in 1924. He served his internship and residency in general surgery with Frederick A. Coller at the University of Michigan.Work
Huggins established a method to measure the effect hormone changes have on prostatic function. He found out that castration or estrogen administration led to glandular atrophy, which could be reversed by re-administration of androgen. In 1941 the beneficial effect of androgen ablation on metastatic prostate cancer was realised when Huggins and Clarence Hodges treated patients by either castration or estrogen therapy. They monitored the prostate size and therapeutic efficacy by measuring serum prostatic acid phosphatase levels and concluded that androgenic activity in the body influences prostate cancer, at least with respect to serum phosphatase. Huggins was the first to use a systemic approach to treat prostate cancer.
In 1958, Huggins received the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on October 13, 1966.
Huggins died 1997 in Chicago, Illinois at the age of 95 years. His wife died in 1983.
