A study of the metabolism of single therapeutic dose (2.0 mg.) of estrone in the preovulatory and postovulatory phases of the menstrual cycle in healthy women.

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ZONDEK'S demonstration in 1934 (1) of the tremendous capacity of the rat to inactivate the natural estrogens has focused attention on the intermediary metabolism of these hormones. Treatment and recovery experiments in man (2–5) have revealed that, regardless of sex, only from 0 to 20 per cent of the administered hormone can be recovered from the urine in recognizable forms and that α-estradiol⇄estrone→estriol conversion appears to characterize one phase of this catabolic process. Although interest recently has centered on the role of the liver in estrogen metabolism, other organs in the intact animal have not been excluded. In fact, in clinical endocrinology the view is often expressed (6–12) that progesterone, acting through the endometrium of the uterus, converts estrone to estriol and thereby exerts a sparing action on the destruction of the estrogens. Thus an elevated recovery of exogenous urinary estrogens and a high ratio of estriol to estrone should characterize the progestational phase of the men...