THE MYOTROPHIC AND ANDROGENIC EFFECTS OF 17-ETHYL-19-NORTESTOSTERONE AND RELATED COMPOUNDS

Abstract

WHILE adequate assay procedures have long been available to determine the androgenic effects of steroids, there was no satisfactoryrapid method of assaying their anabolic effects until development of the levator ani technique by Eisenberg and Gordan (1950). This method is based on the fact that after castration the levator ani muscle atrophies and its weight can be restored by treatment with testosterone propionate and other androgenic steroids. Hershberger, Shipley and Meyer (1953), using a modification of this method, showed that 19-nortestosterone, while exhibiting essentially the same myotrophic activity as testosterone, has only relatively slight androgenic effects. As a measure of the relative activities they used the ratio of the increase in levator ani weight to the increase in ventral prostate weight. The values obtained were about 0.3 for testosterone and 1.0 for 19-nortestosterone.