A COMPARISON OF URINARY ESTROGENS DETERMINED BIOLOGICALLY AND OF “ESTROIDS” DETERMINED CHEMICALLY*

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Abstract
The correspondence of biologic assays of estrogens and microchemical detns. of "estroids" by a modified Kober procedure was examined for human urine obtained from several groups of patients and normal individuals. In general, these studies cover the so-called "physiologic" range of estrogen excretion. The female subjects included amenorrheic, ovulating, and early pregnant individuals. The male subjects comprised 5 groups, i.e., normal controls, hypogonadism, hepatic disease, hepatic disease with gynecomastia, and nutritional gynecomastia. Over this low physiological range for males the correlation (r=0.52) was only suggestive. The normal population, however, showed very low color values with almost no biologic potency. Cases falling above this range showed the same correlation (r=0.57) with a higher biologic potency. Because the ratio of estrogens (biologic) to "estroids" (chemical) is higher in ovulating females and in gynecomastic males than in normal males, a qualitative difference in the urinary steroid metabolites is indicated. When definite categories of individuals are selected, the microchemical detn. of "estroids" reflects adequately the biologic assay of urinary estrogens.