ESTROGEN AND PROGESTIN METABOLISM IN PREGNANCY. II. THE ENDOCRINE IMBALANCE OF PREECLAMPSIA AND ECLAMPSIA. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS TO FEBRUARY 19411

Abstract

SINCE the last publications from this laboratory (1,2) on hormonal investigations in human preg-nancy, 18 additional cases have been studied. Three of these were normal late pregnancies;213 had preeclampsia and 2 eclampsia. The object of the present communication is to report the data from these recent cases in combination with our earlier data, to bring our results from the quantification of serum chorionic gonadotropin (CG) up to date and to summarize our evidence that a progestin deficient metabolism of the estrogens is a characteristic feature of the preeclamptic syndrome. The methods used for following estrogen and progestin metabolism are discussed in the preceding paper. The technic for approximately gauging the level of serum CG has been described (1). As was emphasized, the assay is not truly quantitative and a given patient should be considered as having high or low values only when check resuits are obtained on at least a specimens of serum.