Action of several synthetic steroids of the human ovary

Abstract

The ovarian effects of several synthetic steroids have been studied, examining ovarian biopsies after treatment with such compounds. This method appears to be very precise for measuring the antiovulatory potency of steroids. With this technique, we have been able to observe that mestranol use alone has antiovulatory effects and that ovulation can be totally inhibited with only estrogenic compounds without gestagens. This ovulostatic action can be reinforced with the addition of a progestogen to the estrogen. The anovulatory action of progestogenic agents, used alone without the added estrogen, depends upon the potency of the drug and the dosage, but it does not seem to be consistent. Sequential therapy seems to have slightly less ovulostatic activity than that of combined therapy, and its action depends only upon the estrogen administered in the first days of the treatment. Combined or classical therapy, according to the dosage of both estrogen and gestagen compounds that it contains, can not only inhibit ovulation and corporalutea formation but also even suppress maturation of all the follicles.