LOCAL ACTION OF STEROIDS ON SENILE HUMAN SKIN

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Abstract
CONSIDERABLE evidence has accumulated showing that steroids applied locally have a profound effect upon the skin and its accessory structures. As early as 1929, Loeb and Haven1 showed that injection of estrogen into ovariectomized adult guinea pigs accelerated mitosis and proliferation and increased the cell population of the epidermis. In 1937, Kun2 demonstrated that the same changes could be induced in infantile or senile rats (i. e., rats with low estrogen production) by the topical administration of estradiol in an ointment. In the skin of the mouse cyclic changes synchronous with the estrous cycle were described by Bullough3 in 1943; maximal activity of the epidermal cells was correlated with the high-estrogen phase of the cycle or could be produced artificially during diestrus by estrogen injections. Recent studies4 by means of skin spectrophotometry have demonstrated cutaneous vascular changes in women correlated with fluctuations in estrogen levels; this confirmed the observation of dermovascular reactions