SEVERAL years ago Callow and Callow (1) demonstrated that the microchemieal determination of 17-ketosteroids could yield valuable information regarding endocrine function in man and other animals. This finding has since been substantiated in many other laboratories (2–6). Nevertheless, considerable opposition to the procedure was raised originally on the grounds that: (a) the urinary 17-ketosteroids constitute a mixture; (b) their value is considerably higher than a biologically equivalent amount of androsterone; and (c) they vary with changes in both testicular and adrenal function. Similar objections can be raised with respect to urinary components related to estradiol. Like testosterone, estradiol is converted within the human organism into degradation products of lower biological potency. The best known of such degradation compounds in the female are estrone and estriol (6). Smith and Smith (7) have also concentrated from human urine a substance which tentatively they regard as a lactone. Furthermore, in animals even after oöphorectomy certain estrogenic effects can be detected, especially in the presence of adrenal hyperplasia (8). Evidence is accumulating that these effects are due to materials which resemble estradiol chemically (9). Under appropriate chemical conditions all of these substances, as isolated from urine, give color reactions similar to estradiol. In the present paper the term “urinary estroids” is used to signify a mixture of steroids which, after extraction from urine and appropriate partial purification, can be estimated microchemically in terms of estradiol equivalents.
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Salter et al. (1948) studied this question.