The validity and significance of hormone levels in gynaecology.

The development of radioimmunoassay of steroid hormones in peripheral venous blood has led to a more direct index of gonadal production and concurrent monitoring of glandular function. While serial analyses of total urinary oestrogens can be correlated with luteinizing hormone (LH) excretion in treating amenorrhoea, radioimmunoassay of plasma oestrogens measures acute changes in ovarian responsiveness. For studies of androgens radioimmunoassay of plasma testosterone is the method of choice, but fractionation of urinary 17-oxosteroids may be useful and can be extended to include the pregnane series and corticoids.

Hormonal assessment before and after vasectomy.

Animal experiments have suggested that vasectomy may disturb the endocrine function of the testis. To explore this possibility in man blood was obtained from 277 men who had undergone vasectomy up to six years earlier or who were about to undergo the operation. Mean plasma testosterone concentrations seemed to be slightly higher in those who had undergone vasectomy than in the preoperative group, although this difference was not statistically significant.

200 infertile males: correlation of chromosome, histological, endocrine and clinical studies.

Somatic and meiotic chromosomes have been studied prospectively in 200 subfertile males. The results have been correlated with clinical, seminal and endocrinological features, with histological findings in testicular biopsies and with response to conventional treatment. Somatic chromosome abnormalities were found in 3-5% of cases and variants of the Y chromosome were found in 10-5%.