Serum luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone concentrations were measured prior to and following surgical oophorectomy in seven women with regular menstrual cycles. In 6 of the 7, there was an initial decline in serum gonadotropin levels which persisted for one to five days following oophorectomy. Serum LH and FSH concentrations then gradually rose but one month following surgery, the serum gonadotropin concentrations, although elevated, had not yet reached postmenopausal levels in all subjects. In all cases, FSH levels initially rose more rapidly than LH concentrations. One subject had no decline in serum gonadotropins immediately following surgery but rather demonstrated a rapid increase in serum LH and FSH levels similar to the normal mid-cycle gonadotropin surge. Serum gonadotropins in this subject returned to presurgical concentrations by the second postoperative day and then gradually increased to postmenopausal levels. The data from this subject suggest that once the midcycle surge of LH and FSH is initiated, the factors responsible for the postsurgical gonadotropin depression observed in the other subjects were not operative, and that once the signal for this midcycle gonadotropin surge has been initiated, the surge occurs despite gonadal removal
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Monroe et al. (1972) studied this question.