Problems related to the determination of the secretion and inter conversion of androgens by "urinary" methods

Three normal adult individuals, 2 males and 1 female, received a constant infusion of ³H-T and ¹⁴C-Δ during basal conditions and ACTH or HCG stimulation. One subject with the syndrome of testicular feminization and 2 subjects with congenital adrenal hyperplasia received a similar infusion under basal conditions. A 7th patient with idiopathic anorchism received a single IV injection of the same two labeled steroids. Blood production of T and Δ, and urinary production of T were determined and compared with the values of urinary secretion of T and urinary production of Δ as devised by Gurpide et al. (16). A rather good correlation between blood and urinary production of T was observed except in subjects under exogenous or endogenous ACTH stimulation. In the normal female under basal conditions, the discrepancy between the two determinations was small in absolute value but large in percentage, In 7 of the 11 experiments, the urinary secretion rate of T as calculated by the method of Gurpide, came out negative. This was due to a specific activity relative to ¹⁴C higher in urinary TG than in urinary AG. This problem raises doubts about the validity of the model proposed by Gurpide et al. (16) for the determination of the secretion and interconversion of DS-D-Δ -T, although the part of the model concerned with DS-D might remain valid.