The timing of ovulation by a method of direct basophil cells count

The variation of the basophil cells number during the menstrual cycle was studied by the method of Shelley and Parnes, slightly modified. The study comprised 29 women diagnosed as primary or secondary amenorrhoea (first group) and 38 women with normal menstrual cycle, twenty of them being fertile and 18 diagnosed as secodary sterility (second group), including also two women in the second month of pregnancy. The radioimmunological measurement of luteinizing (LH) and follicle-stimulating (FSH) hormone was applied for the second group. The data obtained on 34 women of the second group showed the precipitous decrease of the number of basophils from the level of 20--50/mm3 in the follicular phase, or even their disappearance. This decrease corresponded to the LH increase. Moreover, the morphologic examination of the basophils during the menstrual cycle allowed to classify these cells into three categories: intact, partially degranulated, and firing, the number of the latter type increasing on the day of ovulation at the expense of the first two types.