STUDIES ON THE OPTIMAL DOSAGE OF ESTROGENS

doi:10.1001/jama.1937.02780030001001

STUDIES ON THE OPTIMAL DOSAGE OF ESTROGENS

AN EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL EVALUATION

HARLES MAZER, M.D.;
S. LEON ISRAEL, M.D.

PHILADELPHIA
From the Department of Gynecology, Mount Sinai Hospital.

Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.

Excerpt

With the recent availability of chemically pure and highly concentrated estrogenic products, the medical profession is confronted with the problems of the margin of safety, therapeutic indications and optimal dosage. In a previous study on the constitutional effects of relatively large doses of estrogens, we¹ found that the administration of from 100,000 to 260,000 rat units of the principle, given in divided doses over a period of from two to three months, produces no appreciable changes in body weight, basal metabolism, blood pressure, blood count, coagulation and bleeding times, blood chemistry and urine. The present study was undertaken in an attempt to evaluate the indications for the clinical use of estrogens, their respective optimal dosage and the most effective modes of administration.

THE PHYSIOLOGIC EFFECTS OF ESTROGEN IN THE EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL Clinical studies in optimal dosage of a new therapeutic agent are by necessity based primarily on the varied

Footnotes

Because of lack of space, this article is abbreviated in The Journal. The complete article appears in the author's reprints.
Read before the Section on Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the Eighty-Seventh Annual Session of the American Medical Association, Kansas City, Mo., May 13, 1936.
The international unit (weight unit) of estrogen is one-tenth microgram. The ratio between the rat unit and the international unit varies with the chemical composition of the product and its purity. In our laboratory various samples of estrone yielded from 500,000 to 1,000,000 rat units per gram; estriol, 150,000 rat units per gram; estradiol, 6,500,000 rat units per gram, and estradiol benzoate 5,500,000 rat units per gram. It is therefore evident that the use of the rat unit is preferable when dealing with the several estrogens.