Separation and Estimation of Adrenal Steroids in the Urine of Newborn Infants

Four Clinical Variants of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

“…Urinary oestrogens were estimated by the method of Brown (1955). Fractionation of individual urinary steroids in Case 4 was by the techniques described by Birchall, Cathro, Forsyth and Mitchell (1961).…”

Excretion of corticosteroids by infants of diabetic and pre-diabetic mothers.

“…The characteristic compounds obtained in this fraction of urinary extracts from adults, namely, dehydroepiandrosterone, aetiocholanolone, and androsterone are almost inconspicuous in infancy urine, in which the typical Zimmermann chromogens are substances less polar than androsterone (Cathro et al, 1963). An early impression from work on pooled urine that the excretion of Fraction I compounds seemed to be more marked in premature infants (Birchall, Cathro, Forsyth, and Mitchell, 1961) has been sustained. The excretion of Fraction II Zimmermann chromogens of medium polarity is reported in Table 2.…”

“…Although the unique excretion patterns during the first week of life are indicative of a different mode of steroid metabolism from that found in adults (Cathro et al, 1963), the structure of many of the compounds which have been tentatively identified in infancy urine, and the probable structures of others, from theoretical considerations Cathro, 1964), are such that quantitative estimations of these individual compounds are considered likely to have provided a reasonably accurate indication of adrenocortical activity in early infancy.…”

“…Individual neutral steroids in the urine samples from infants were assayed by the method of Birchall, Cathro, Forsyth, and Mitchell (1963). In this method, an extract of the unconjugated steroids originally present in the urine and of steroids released by a two-stage enzyme hydrolysis, which will cleave steroid sulphates as well as steroid glucosiduronates, is subjected to preliminary purification and to chromatography, which allows subdivision of the steroids into three fractions on the basis of polarity.…”

“…On this account, various workers have investigated the excretion of adrenal steroids by these infants but the results have been inconclusive, possibly due to the fact that methods for the assay of groups of adrenocortical steroids have been used-methods primarily designed to measure the principal steroid metabolites excreted by adults and of limited application to studies of newborn infants with their unique steroid metabolism (Cathro, Birchall, Mitchell, and Forsyth, 1963). There is a further drawback to the use of these methods in analyses of urine obtained from newborn infants, in that accurate correction to exclude the contribution of the large quantities of non-specific chromogens that are characteristic of this age-group is somewhat difficult (Birchall and Mitchell, 1965).…”