BEFORE embarking upon a discussion of anovulatory infertility, it is necessary to define a physiologically normal menstrual cycle and to review our present knowledge of the hormonal changes that occur. In humans a 'normal' cycle has a mean length of 28 32 days+0 6 days (SD = 5 41 days), ovulation occurs and there must be normal corpus luteum function. Recent reviews of the normal changes in the...

Oestrogens play key roles in the development of the majority of breast tumours, a fact that has been exploited successfully in treating breast cancer with tamoxifen, which is a selective oestrogen receptor modulator. In post-menopausal women, oestrogens are synthesised in peripheral hormone-target tissues from adrenally derived precursors. Important in the peripheral fine-tuning of sex hormone ...

A considerable amount of work has been done on the metabolism by living animals of oestrogens, both natural and synthetic, but, as pointed out by Dodds, Folley, Glascock & Lawson (1958), the doses given have nearly always been very large compared with the physiological dose. This has been necessary because the methods available for the detection of the oestrogens or their derivatives were relat...