[Effect of a combination of gestoden-ethylene estradiol on the endometrium]

It has been long established that contraceptive steroid mixtures are highly effective due to the fact that they act simultaneously upon different levels of the pituitary-ovarian-genital tract axis. We hypothesized that the mixture of 30 mcg of ethynylestradiol plus 75 mcg of gestodene might be effective partly through the changes it induces in the histology and histochemistry of the endometrium. To test this hypothesis, 32 healthy patients willing to participate, aged 23 to 34 years, were treated with the above mentioned combination of steroids from day 1 through day 21 of the cycle for six consecutive cycles. They were previously proven to be fertile and ovulatory. In ten of them, selected at random, an endometrial biopsy was taken on the cycle previous to therapy and upon completion of the steroid treatment, for comparison. Tissues were processed for histologic evaluation with hematoxylin-eosin and with acridine orange for the histochemical demonstration of glycogen and ribonucleic acid under fluorescence microscopy. All pre-treatment endometria showed normal findings for ovulatory cycles, while the post-treatment tissues were typical of the steroid-treated endometria, i.e., they had a disrupted balance between glandular and stromal maturation, plus a diminished and abnormally distributed glycogen and ribonucleic acid. We conclude that the established working hypothesis was confirmed.