Pulsatile gonadotrophin releasing hormone therapy in patients with hyperandrogenaemia or hypothalamic amenorrhoea

From 1984 to 1985, 18 patients with infertility and oligomenorrhoea were treated with pulsatile GnRH administration (Zyklomat). According to the hormone levels and the ultrasonographic observation of the ovaries, they could be divided into two categories, group A (n = 11), patients with hyperandrogenaemia, and group B (n = 7), patients with hypothalamic amenorrhoea. As in hyperandrogenaemic patients a pathological LH-secretion pattern was suspected, assessment of LH-pulsing (5 ml blood samples at 10 min intervals over 6 h) was performed in this group of patients followed by an oestrogen-gestagen (E-Ge) suppression. One day before discontinuation of this medication, the GnRH pump was applied intravenously. Ovulation induction was more successful in group B than in group A. Hyperandrogenaemic women, in whom ovulation could be induced by the GnRH pump, exhibited higher basal concentrations of FSH, LH, LH/FSH ratio, oestradiol- 17 beta and testosterone (T) than the women not responding to pulsatile GnRH administration. The suppression of T and LH/FSH ratio with E-Ge treatment was more pronounced, while the non-responders had higher basal prolactin concentrations as well as after E-Ge therapy and a significantly greater body weight. The results indicate that GnRH therapy in hypothalamic amenorrhoea is more successful than in hyperandrogenaemia. Overweight hyperandrogenaemic patients appeared to be unsuitable for GnRH treatment, even after previous suppression of the hypothalamic pituitary ovarian axis with E-Ge.