The human pineal gland in malignancy.

The weight and degree of calcification of 500 pineal glands has been measured. The degree of cellularity, the size of the pineocyte nuclei and the extent of degeneration has been estimated in histological examinations of the glands. There are some differences in the weight of the gland in males and females of different ages and part of this is due to variations in the amount of calcium in the glands. There is only a minor decrease in the cellularity of the glands with increasing age, and this is accompanied in females by a slight increase in fibrosis and gliosis. The weight of the gland is high in patients dying from trauma and burns. No statistical differences are found in the weight of the pineal glands from patients dying of malignant and non-malignant conditions, although in most age-groups the glands tend to be smaller in patients dying of malignancy. On the other hand patients dying from carcinoma of the breast and from melanoma have much larger glands than those dying from sarcoma.