BASAL TEMPERATURE STUDIES IN THE AGED FEMALE: INFLUENCE OF ESTROGEN, PROGESTERONE, AND ANDROGEN

Abstract

AN ANALYSIS of basal temperature curves has become almost routine L in the diagnosis and treatment of many gynecologic disorders. The practical significance of the progestational temperature rise in the normal menstrual cycle has long been appreciated and recently the work of Palmer (1), Buxton and Atkinson (2), and Davis and Fugo (3) has shed considerable light on the mechanism by which this phenomenon occurs. It is with the hope of further contributing to the general knowledge of the subject that the following observations made on patients receiving known amounts of various hormone preparations are presented.1 These studies suggest that the regulation of the temperature curves of menstruation and gestation may depend not so much upon the individual levels of estrogen or progesterone but rather upon the estrogen-progesterone ratio at critical points during the cycles. In addition, some information concerning the influence of cyclic testosterone on the basal temperature curve is presented for consideration.