Amenorrhea: a review of forty cases

A retrospective analysis of the clinical data from 40 patients with amenorrhea has enabled us to reach useful generalizations applicable to the management of this problem. Chromosome studies when puberty is delayed and a thorough pelvic examination when menarche fails to appear at the proper time relative to the sequence of other pubertal events will lead to an early definitive diagnosis in most cases of primary amenorrhea. A schema for the functional categorization of patients with secondary amenorrhea is presented to obviate the necessity of obtaining a needlessly expensive battery of laboratory tests which often yield misleading or uninterpretable data.