Human female cycle of urinary oestrone.

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THE patterns of urinary oestrone excretion during the human menstrual cycle which have been published1–3 show two pronounced excretion peaks corresponding to ovulation and the luteal maximum which are between 8 and 11 days apart with a mean of 9 days. Despite the imprecision of the assay methods, a very small rise of urinary oestrone excretion could often be observed during menstruation with a peak 8–10 days before the ovulation peak. The development of our specific, more sensitive and precise method for determining urinary oestrone4 led us to the finding of an 8–10 day cycle of this urinary oestrogen in the normal human male, and to the suggestion that the periods of the urinary oestrone cycles in males and females are similar5. We therefore inferred that the normal human menstrual cycle is made up of three distinct urinary oestrone cycles with peaks of excretion between 8 and 11 days apart. The present communication gives the results of an investigation of the urinary oestrone excretion for the human menstrual cycle.