[Hormonal pituitary functions of women with increasing age (author's transl)]

Pituitary functioning was observed endocrinologically in women in mature, climacteric and senile periods, and also patients after ovariectomy of both sides. Serum FSH and LH levels, especially in the former, showed a tendency towards increasing from the climacterium (45-49 years) up to the age of 60-64, and thereafter remained constant in a defined level. Serum PRL, ACTH and GH levels had a tendency to decrease after menopause. Serum TSH levels decreased from the age of 60-64 years. The change of responses for LH-RH tests with advancing age was found to be similar to that of serum gonadotropin levels. On the other hand, in the changes of response of PRL and TSH to TRH test with increasing age, there was a reverse tendency to that of gonadotropin to LH-RH. In ovariectomized women who still had a menstrual cycle, there was a great increase in serum FSH and LH after the operation, as against those who had spent 3 years and 10 months, or 4 years and 4 months after menopause, a slight or little increase respectively. Meanwhile, the LH response to LH-RH was higher in the premenopausal ovariectomized women than that of the post-menopausal unovariectomized women.