Observations on the Occurrence of Six Estrogen Fractions in Human Pregnancy Urine: I. Normal Pregnancy*†

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Abstract
A chemical method of apparently adequate reliability made it possible to obtain a fairly accurate picture of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the urinary excretion of 2-methoxyestrone, estrone, ring D α-ketolic estrogens, estriol, 16-epiestriol and estradiol-17β (estradiol) in human pregnancy. With the exception of 2- methoxyestrone, these fractions increased during the last 20 weeks of pregnancy. 2- Methoxyestrone behaved in an irregular fashion and was frequently not present in measurable amounts. Further fractionation of the ring D a-ketolic estrogens showed the main constituents to be 16α-hydroxyestrone and 16-ketoestradiol-17β (16-ketoestradiol). During the last four weeks of pregnancy the mean corrected values for the 24-hour excretion of the various fractions in 7 normal pregnancies were: 2-methoxyestrone, 0.17 mg; estrone, 1.4 mg; 16α-hydroxyestrone, 2.9 mg; 16-ketoestradiol, 2.0 mg; estriol, 26.4 mg; 16-epiestriol, 1.2 mg; and estradiol, 0.56 mg. The excretion of the 6 fractions taken together agreed closely with total estrogen excretion as measured by the Tttrich technique.