A test for qualitative and quantitative estimation of pregnane-3 alpha, 17 alpha, 20 alpha-triol-11-one in urine, and its significance in adrenal disturbances.

Abstract

IN PREVIOUS publications we described a urinary fraction which exhibits fluorescence when heated with 85 per cent phosphoric acid (1, 2). Urine of both normal males and females contains this material. In males excretion is uniform and (calculated in terms of 17-hydroxycorticosterone) amounts to 2 mg. per twenty-four hours. On the other hand, in the urine of normally menstruating women there are usually two peaks of excretion —one at about the tenth day of the cycle and one at about the twentieth day. The mean variation during the cycle is between 0.5 mg. and. 1.8 mg. per twenty-four hours. The excretion of the fluorogenic material is increased in late pregnancy to 2.5–4.0 mg. per twenty-four hours. In normal subjects excretion can be increased to four times that of the control period, by injecting 300 mg. of adrenotropic hormone in daily doses of 100 mg. Especially pronounced was the high concentration of the urinary fluorogenic material in a case of arrhenoblastoma (4 mg. per twenty-four hours), and excr...