[Luteotropic effect of human chorionic gonadotropin on human corpus luteum in early gestation (author's transl)]

To study the luteotropic effect of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) on human corpus luteum in early gestation, serum pregnenolone, 17 alpha OH-pregnenolone, dehydroepiandrosterone, progesterone, 17 alpha OH-progesterone, androstenedione, 20 alpha-dihydroprogesterone and estradiol levels in both ovarian and peripheral venous blood measured by RIA before and after administration of hCG. Seven patients selected for this experiment were 6 to 16 weeks of gestation complicated with fibromyoma. On hysterectomy, 1,000 or 2,000 I.U. of hCG was directly injected into the ovary with corpus luteum to the patients of 6, 12 and 16 weeks of gestation, or 100,000 I.U. of hCG was infused intravenously to the patients of 9 and 14 weeks of gestation. Before 12 weeks of gestation, all free steroid levels except for conjugated steroids in ovarian vein increased promptly 1.8 to 8.9 fold as compared with control levels and stayed high levels for 25 to 60 minutes after administration of hCG. However no marked alteration of these steroids was observed in peripheral vein. In cases studied after 14 weeks of gestation, no marked change of steroid levels in ovarian vein was noticed, while a moderate increase of hCG was observed. These results demonstrated that hCG stimulates the steroidogenesis of corpus luteum in early pregnancy. It was demonstrated that extremely high doses of hCG was required to stimulate steroidogenesis corpus in luteum gravidarum of early gestation.