CONSTANCY OF ANDROGEN CONCENTRATION IN THE URINE

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Abstract
Each of 9 human subjects, normal from the standpoint of kidney function, was studied by determining the biologically active androgen content and urinary vol. of a series of consecutive 3-day specimens of urine, collected for a period of approx. 1 mo. In 3 of these cases, the urinary output was varied throughout the period of study by forced and restricted fluid intake. Androgen content was detd. by the chick-comb method previously described and the results were expressed in terms of output/liter of urine (conc.) and output/24 hrs. The conc. of biologically active androgens in the urine was constant within the limits of reliability of the assay method and independent of the daily urinary output, even under forced and restricted fluid intake. The standard deviation for any one set of values never exceeded 16.5% of the mean. Contrary to the foregoing, the androgen output/24 hrs. showed considerable variation; the standard deviation for any one set of these values was invariably greater than that for the conc. data, the difference being as much as 4.5-fold in an extreme case. However, these variations in daily output of androgens were not irregular but paralleled the daily output of urine. The correlation coefficients were 0.95 or greater in 5 of the 9 cases, and never fell below 0.72. This finding is contrary to the report of Oesting and Webster. Such constancy of conc. is not in accord with the behavior of any other urinary constituent. Further study of this problem is necessary before any definite conclusion can be drawn concerning kidney function in relation to androgen excretion.

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