EFFECT OF LARGE DOSES OF INTRAVENOUSLY ADMINISTERED PROGESTERONE ON GONADOTROPIN EXCRETION IN THE HUMAN FEMALE*

Abstract

INTRODUCTION ALTHOUGH a large and respectable body of literature has arisen on the relationship between the activities of progesterone and pituitary gonadotropin¹ in experimental animals, the available information on this relationship in human subjects is comparatively scanty. Funke (1) (cited by Smith and Albert (2)) and Büttner and Trappmann (3) found no significant effect of progesterone on the levels of excreted gonadotropin. The doses used by the latter authors were 10–20 mg. per day, with a total dose of 60 mg. in one case, and 120 mg. in another. Laroche, Simonnet and Bompard (4), using doses ranging from 6 to 65 mg. per day injected over periods ranging from five to twenty-three days, claimed to show a slight reduction of gonadotropins in the urine of castrated or menopausal women. Recently Smith and Albert (2) reported that progesterone in a dose of 50 mg. per day orally for eight days in one case, and Pranone^® in a dose of up to 100 mg. per day for one week in another case failed to suppress the excretion of gonadotropins. Both their patients were castrated women.