Huggins, Charles Brenton (1901–1997)

Canadian-born US physician who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1966 for his work on the hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer. He shared the prize with Peyton Rous, who was awarded it for his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses.

Huggins developed an interest in the hormonal treatment of cancers of the male urinogenital tract, particularly the prostate gland (the gland surrounding and opening into the urethra at the base of the bladder in males).

Huggins hypothesized that since male sex hormones largely influence the activity of the prostate gland, removing or neutralizing these hormones might affect the cancer. In 1941, he and his colleagues reported a series of experiments in which carcinoma of the prostate had been treated either by castration or by the administration of the female sex hormone oestrogen, or by both methods combined. The results were unexpectedly favourable even when extensive bony metastases were present.

The success of this treatment was so striking that very soon it was adopted by surgeons in all parts of the world. He went on to extend these studies to suggest that some forms of breast cancer in women might also respond to hormonal therapy.

Huggins was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada. In 1936, he was appointed professor of surgery at the University of Chicago.