Plasma concentrations of progesterone are higher in the uterine artery than in the radial artery after vaginal administration of micronized progesterone in an oil-based solution to postmenopausal women

E. Cicinelli, Ettore Cicinelli, M Cignarelli, Mauro Cignarelli, Sergio Sabatelli, S Sabatelli, F. Romano, Luca Maria Schonäuer, L M Schonauer, Rossella Padovano, R Padovano, N Einer-Jensen, N. Einer‐Jensen
Fertility and sterility · 1998 · vol. 69(3) , pp. 471–473 · doi:10.1016/s0015-0282(97)00545-1 · PMID:9531879 · W2016838062
Other OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 3 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-13 ⓘ

Progesterone levels in the uterine artery were higher than in the radial artery after vaginal administration of micronized progesterone in an oil-based solution to postmenopausal women.

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

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To verify the occurrence of preferential distribution of vaginally administered progesterone to the uterus compared with extrapelvic regions in vivo and in humans. DESIGN: Prospective clinical study. SETTING: University medical school. PATIENT(S): Twenty postmenopausal women undergoing transabdominal hysterectomy for benign pathologies. INTERVENTION(S): Forty-five minutes before surgery, the women received a single vaginal administration of an oil-based micronized progesterone (100 mg) solution currently available on the market for IM use. During the operation, parallel blood samples were drawn from the uterine and radial arteries. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Plasma levels of progesterone were measured by RIA. RESULT(S): Mean (+/- SD) plasma levels of progesterone were significantly higher in the uterine artery than in the radial artery (9.75 +/- 3.21 vs. 5.12 +/- 2.06 ng/mL, respectively). CONCLUSION(S): Vaginal administration allows a preferential distribution of progesterone to the uterus, which confirms the existence of the so-called "first uterine pass effect."

My notes (saved in your browser only)

MeSH descriptors

Arteries Postmenopause Progesterone Progesterone Radial Artery Uterus Administration, Intravaginal Female Humans Middle Aged Progesterone Prospective Studies Solutions Uterus

Citation neighborhood (sparse)

Too few in-corpus citations on either side for a chart; here are the lists.

Cited by (3)

References (15)

Cited by (3)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-05-11T05:53:22.067783+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T22:00:35.617750+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK