Eileen A. Michie

URINARY OESTRIOL EXCRETION IN PREGNANCIES COMPLICATED BY SUSPECTED RETARDED INTRAUTERINE GROWTH, TOXAEMIA OR ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION

MANY publications in recent years have reported urinary oestriol values in normal and abnormal pregnancies (e.g. MacLeod et al., 1967; Greene et al., 1965; Frandsen and Stakemann, 1963). Many of these reports deal with small numbers of patients or fail to define adequately the various pathological conditions involved. Frequently toxaemia and essential hypertension have been considered as a single pathological entity and the oestriol excretion values reported present a confusing picture. In this report the case history of each patient was examined retrospectively and the last oestriol value before delivery, usually within one week of delivery, was used in the scatter graphs.

HORMONAL PATTERNS IN CONCEPTUAL CYCLES AND EARLY PREGNANCY

Androstenedione, testosterone, progesterone and human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) in plasma and total oestrogens, luteinizing hormone (LH) and HCG in urine were measured in five women during conceptual cycles and in early pregnancy. There were increased levels in plasma and urine of all the hormones measured between 12 to 48 days after ovulation except progesterone. The concentration of this hormone in plasma decreased during this time. The possible sources of these hormones in early pregnancy are discussed.

Amniotic and urinary oestriol assays in pregnancies complicated by rhesus immunization.

Oestriol was measured in 163 samples of amniotic fluid obtained by amniocentesis from 53 rhesus negative women. It was not possible to correlate the oestriol concentration in amniotic fluid shortly before delivery with the severity of haemolytic disease in the five severely affected infants in the series. In only two of eight patients whose infants died in the neonatal period was it possible to assess from the amniotic fluid oestriol results that the fetus was at risk. Five patients who aborted spontaneously before the 26th week of pregnancy generally had low oestriol concentrations in the amniotic fluid prior to abortion.

THE ESTIMATION OF OESTRIOL IN AMNIOTIC FLUID: A COMPARISON OF THREE METHODS

Aliquots from 30 samples of liquor amnii were analyzed for oestriol in Aberdeen, Belfast and Edinburgh, using the methods evolved in each centre. The results from the three centres were related in the sense that values which were found to be low in one centre were low also in the others, and similarly, high values in one centre were high also in the other two. The correlation between Edinburgh and Belfast was least close and that between Edinburgh and Aberdeen was closest. The mean Edinburgh result was 125 per cent of the Aberdeen value and the mean Belfast result 322 per cent of the Aberdeen value.