OESTRIN AND PROGESTIN IN SECONDARY AMENORRHOEA

In 1933 Kaufmann1 2 described his treatment of forty cases of amenorrhoea, in all of which three normal periods 'had followed injections of oestrin and progestin. The technique he adopted was to give 250,000 international units of oestrin every three days for five doses, followed by three days' rest, and then thirty-five rabbit units of progestin distributed over five consecutive days, the total amount of oestrin for a course of treatment being one and a quarter million international units, or 50,000 rat units. If too much bestrin was used Kaufmann found that cystic hyperplasia of the endometrium resulted, this con dition being analogous to that found in metropathia haemorrhagica, but it required the administration of over five million international units before this happened. A rat unit is equivalent to five mouse units and to twenty five international units, and is described as the minimum quantity of ketahydroxy-oestrin required to produce a cell picture of oestrus in the vaginal smear of ovariectomized fats ; 50,000 international units are equivalent to 1 mg. of the dihydro-oestrin ; and 26.7 mg. of the crystalline benzoate are needed to produce a single period. The dihydro-oestrin is five times the strength of the ketohydroxyroestrin.