The effect of ovariectomy on gonadotropin release.

Yen SS, Tsai CC
The Journal of clinical investigation · 1971 · doi:10.1172/jci106587 · PMID:5552412 · PMC292038
OA: closed
📄 Open PDF Full text JSON View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-09-08 ⓘ

This study in premenopausal women found that ovariectomy timing relative to the menstrual cycle phase significantly influences the magnitude and pattern of subsequent luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone release.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-08-25 · read from full text ⓘ

This study measured circulating luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels in ten premenopausal women following bilateral ovariectomy to determine how the timing of surgery relative to the menstrual cycle affects gonadotropin release. The researchers found that removal during the follicular phase caused a rapid, biphasic spike in both hormones, whereas removal during the luteal phase resulted in a slower, progressive rise, with significant differences in the initial secretion rates between the two groups. By the third week post-surgery, LH and FSH concentrations plateaued at significantly elevated levels, with FSH increasing more substantially than LH, leading to a reversal of their normal serum ratio. Relevance to endometriosis: listed as one indication for GnRH antagonists, though the paper's main focus is uterine fibroids.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

The sequential changes in the concentration and pattern of circulating luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH)(1) following bilateral ovariectomy were determined in 10 premenopausal women. The initial (1st wk) and delayed (3 wk) secretory responses of serum LH and FSH as related to the phases of the menstrual cycle were examined. Ovariectomy during follicular phase was accompanied by a prompt and much greater rise in both LH and FSH during the 1st wk. This rapid rise was followed by a transient decline between the 7th and 10th day which resulted in a biphasic pattern. In contrast, a slower and progressive rise in serum LH and FSH was observed in subjects ovariectomized during luteal phase of the cycle. The quantitative secretion (area under the curve) during the 1st wk after ovariectomy was significantly greater in patients operated on during the follicular phase than during the luteal phase for both LH (P < 0.05) and FSH (P < 0.01). Thereafter, a similar pattern of gonadotropin rise was observed for patients ovariectonized during either phase of the cycle and reached a plateau by the end of the 3rd wk. At this time, the mean LH concentration increased 6-fold for follicular phase surgery and 8-fold for luteal phase surgery. The mean serum FSH concentration increased 8-fold for follicular phase surgery and 12-fold for luteal phase surgery. The net increase in serum FSH level was higher than that in the serum LH level after surgery in both phases of the cycle and thus a reversal of FSH/LH ratio occurred. These data provide indirect evidence that the phase of ovarian steroid secretion may exert a quantitative influence on the gonadotropin turnover rate within the hypothalamic-pituitary system. The augmented gonadotropin release and the reversal of FSH/LH ratio following ovariectomy presumably could be due to an increased gonadotropin net synthesis which is more pronounced for FSH than for LH.
Full text 3,139 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · click to expand
Advertisement Research Article Free access | 10.1172/JCI106587 Department of Reproductive Biology, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, La Jolla, California 92037 Find articles by Yen, S. in: PubMed | Google Scholar Department of Reproductive Biology, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, La Jolla, California 92037 Find articles by Tsai, C. in: PubMed | Google Scholar Published May 1, 1971 - More info Published in Volume 50, Issue 5 on May 1, 1971 J Clin Invest. 1971;50(5):1149–1153. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI106587. © 1971 The American Society for Clinical Investigation J Clin Invest. 1971;50(5):1149–1153. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI106587. © 1971 The American Society for Clinical Investigation Published May 1, 1971 - Version history - Abstract The sequential changes in the concentration and pattern of circulating luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH)1 following bilateral ovariectomy were determined in 10 premenopausal women. The initial (1st wk) and delayed (3 wk) secretory responses of serum LH and FSH as related to the phases of the menstrual cycle were examined. Ovariectomy during follicular phase was accompanied by a prompt and much greater rise in both LH and FSH during the 1st wk. This rapid rise was followed by a transient decline between the 7th and 10th day which resulted in a biphasic pattern. In contrast, a slower and progressive rise in serum LH and FSH was observed in subjects ovariectomized during luteal phase of the cycle. The quantitative secretion (area under the curve) during the 1st wk after ovariectomy was significantly greater in patients operated on during the follicular phase than during the luteal phase for both LH (P < 0.05) and FSH (P < 0.01). Thereafter, a similar pattern of gonadotropin rise was observed for patients ovariectonized during either phase of the cycle and reached a plateau by the end of the 3rd wk. At this time, the mean LH concentration increased 6-fold for follicular phase surgery and 8-fold for luteal phase surgery. The mean serum FSH concentration increased 8-fold for follicular phase surgery and 12-fold for luteal phase surgery. The net increase in serum FSH level was higher than that in the serum LH level after surgery in both phases of the cycle and thus a reversal of FSH/LH ratio occurred. These data provide indirect evidence that the phase of ovarian steroid secretion may exert a quantitative influence on the gonadotropin turnover rate within the hypothalamic-pituitary system. The augmented gonadotropin release and the reversal of FSH/LH ratio following ovariectomy presumably could be due to an increased gonadotropin net synthesis which is more pronounced for FSH than for LH. Images. - Version history - Version 1 (May 1, 1971): No description Advertisement Advertisement Copyright © 2026 American Society for Clinical Investigation ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-doi-fallback ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-09-13T09:25:22.628771+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-09-18T06:25:56.777850+00:00