QUANTITATIVE MORPHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF THE FOLLICULAR SYSTEM IN WOMEN

Abstract

Material from 43 autopsies following deaths due to suicide, accident, or acute illness, and ranging in age from 6 to 44 years showed with increasing age a marked trend toward decrease in number of primordial follicles when divided into 10 year groups (6-15 years: 439,000; 36-45 years: 34,000; both ovaries counted); and a gentler trend toward decrease of growing follicles, except that from 18 to 38 a relation between age and number of these follicles could not be established. Graafian follicles showed low values in pre-pubertal and preclimacteric years, but no trend from 18 to 38. There is a wide individual range in numbers at all ages, for instance as much as 28 times in primordial follicles in both ovaries in the age group of 25 to 31 years.