A CRF-Producing and -Secreting Tumor of the Lung

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) has recently been isolated from ovine hypothalamus, characterized chemically, and synthesized. Upton and Amatruda (1971) first suggested that CRF-like activity occurred in neoplastic tissues, and Hashimoto et al. (1980) subsequently detected CRF-like activity in an extract of an ACTHproducing nephroblastoma. Recently, Carey et al. (1984) and Asa et al. (1984) used immunocytochemical techniques to demonstrate CRF in postmortem tumor material obtained from patients with a carcinoma of the prostate and an intrasellar gangliocytoma.