Correlation between plasma estradiol and estrone-3-glucuronide in urine during the monitoring of ovarian induction therapy.

An improved radioimmunoassay was developed to determine estrone-3-glucuronide in daily urine. Resulting levels were compared with those of estradiol in plasma of 10 healthy women and 14 undergoing ovulation induction therapy with human menopausal gonadotropin and human chorionic gonadotropin. A highly significant correlation between plasma estradiol and urinary estrone-3-glucuronide in normal (r = .9209; P less than .01) and stimulated (r = .9229; P less than .01) women was demonstrated. These results proved that the pattern of excretion of estrone-3-glucuronide perfectly reflected the changes in plasmatic estradiol levels when monitoring ovarian induction and that estrone-3-glucuronide determinations can provide clinically useful information in human induction therapy.