A NOTE ON THE CHEMICAL ESTIMATION OF OESTROGENS IN THE URINE OF PATIENTS WITH LIVER DISEASE

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Abstract
When the methods of Brown for estimating oestrogens are used for the processing of acid-hydrolysed bile-stained urine samples from patients with liver disease, an interfering chromogen is found in the final fractions. This chromogen, practically always present in the oestradiol fraction and occasionally also in the other, causes negative corrected optical densities when the Allen correction is applied to the spectrophotometric readings. It therefore interferes to a large extent with the estimation of the oestrogens and more than 20 μg oestradiol per 24 h may escape detection in this way. This chromogen is of the same type as that found previously in acid-hydrolysed bile. However, extracts of enzyme-hydrolysed bile-stained urine samples do not contain this chromogen. Since enzyme hydrolysis has some disadvantages in untreated urine samples, it has been suggested that the urine should be purified before hydrolysis. Preliminary investigations indicate that Sephadex gel filtration is suitable for this purification.