ABSTRACT
The ovaries of ten patients, at least one year after the post-menopause, were incubated with two Δ5-C19-steroids and also studied histochemically. All these patients had post-menopausal uterine bleeding and increased oestrogen excretion of the urine. The urinary estimations of gonadotrophins, 17-KS, 17-OHCS and pregnanediol were carried out on all patients. Vaginal smears were read according to Papanicolaou, and the endometrium and ovaries were studied histologically.
The incubation experiments indicate the presence of Δ5-3β-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase. When androst-5-ene-3β,17β-diol was used as precursor the formation of testosterone occurred without any concomitant production of DHA and/or androstenedione. This seems to indicate the possible role of the Δ5-pathway in the formation of testosterone by post-menopausal ovarian tissue.
The histochemical reactions indicated a reducing activity on NADH, lactate and glucose-6-phosphate, in certain corpora albicantia, atretic follicles and in diffuse thecoma regions in the cortical layer of the ovary. Steroid-3β-ol-dehydrogenase and β-hydroxybutyrate-dehydrogenase were found only at the edges of certain corpora albicantia, in some individual stroma cell groups and in some atretic follicles.
Our studies, both biochemical and histochemical, suggest that the observed increase in the urinary oestrogens of the patients studied might in part at least, be of ovarian origin. This opinion is also supported by the postoperative oestrogen values.
