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Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone for the maternal recognition of pregnancy produced by trophoblast cells that are surrounding a growing embryo, which eventually forms the placenta after implantation. The presence of hCG is detected in some pregnancy tests. Some cancerous tumors produce this hormone; therefore, elevated levels measured when the patient is not pregnant may lead to a cancer diagnosis and, if high enough, paraneoplastic syndromes, however, it is unknown whether this production is a contributing cause or an effect of carcinogenesis. The pituitary analog of hCG, known as luteinizing hormone (LH), is produced in the pituitary gland of males and females of all ages.
A pregnancy test is used to determine whether a female is pregnant or not. The two primary methods are testing for the female pregnancy hormone in blood or urine using a pregnancy test kit, and scanning with ultrasonography. Testing blood for hCG results in the earliest detection of pregnancy. Almost all pregnant women will have a positive urine pregnancy test one week after the first day of a missed menstrual period.
Estrone (E1), also spelled oestrone, is a steroid, a weak estrogen, and a minor female sex hormone. It is one of three major endogenous estrogens, the others being estradiol and estriol. Estrone, as well as the other estrogens, are synthesized from cholesterol and secreted mainly from the gonads, though they can also be formed from adrenal androgens in adipose tissue. Relative to estradiol, both estrone and estriol have far weaker activity as estrogens. Estrone can be converted into estradiol, and serves mainly as a precursor or metabolic intermediate of estradiol. It is both a precursor and metabolite of estradiol.
Gonadotropins are glycoprotein hormones secreted by gonadotropic cells of the anterior pituitary of vertebrates. This family includes the mammalian hormones follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), the placental/chorionic gonadotropins, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG), as well as at least two forms of fish gonadotropins. These hormones are central to the complex endocrine system that regulates normal growth, sexual development, and reproductive function. LH and FSH are secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, while hCG and eCG are secreted by the placenta in pregnant women and mares, respectively. The gonadotropins act on the gonads, controlling gamete and sex hormone production.
Cecil Byran Jacobson was an American former fertility doctor who used his own sperm to impregnate his patients without informing them.
Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is a medical condition that can occur in some women who take fertility medication to stimulate egg growth, and in other women in sporadic cases. Most cases are mild, but rarely the condition is severe and can lead to serious illness or even death.
Frogs have been used in animal tests throughout the history of biomedical science.
Bernhard Zondek was a German-born Israeli gynecologist who developed the first reliable pregnancy test in 1928.
Selmar Aschheim was a German gynecologist who was a native resident of Berlin.
Poor ovarian reserve is a condition of low fertility characterized by 1): low numbers of remaining oocytes in the ovaries or 2) possibly impaired preantral oocyte development or recruitment. Recent research suggests that premature ovarian aging and premature ovarian failure may represent a continuum of premature ovarian senescence. It is usually accompanied by high FSH levels.
Immunocontraception is the use of an animal's immune system to prevent it from fertilizing offspring. Contraceptives of this type are not currently approved for human use.
Broda Otto Barnes was an American physician and professor of medicine who studied endocrine dysfunction, particularly hypothyroidism. In the 1970s, Barnes published several books arguing that hypothyroidism was underdiagnosed in the U.S. and was responsible for a wide range of health problems. Barnes' views on the prevalence of hypothyroidism were never widely accepted by the medical community and run counter to its current understanding of thyroid function, but they have been embraced by some elements of the alternative medicine community.
Gonadotropin preparations are drugs that mimic the physiological effects of gonadotropins, used therapeutically mainly as fertility medication for ovarian hyperstimulation and ovulation induction. For example, the so-called menotropins consist of LH and FSH extracted from human urine from menopausal women. There are also recombinant variants.
Fertility testing is the process by which fertility is assessed, both generally and also to find the "fertile window" in the menstrual cycle. General health affects fertility, and STI testing is an important related field.
Margaret M. Crane is an American inventor and graphic designer who created the first at home pregnancy test in 1967 while working at Organon Pharmaceuticals in West Orange, New Jersey. She is the listed inventor on US Patent 3,579,306 and 215,7774. There was resistance to marketing pregnancy tests for consumers rather than doctors, and the home pregnancy test did not become available until 1977, except for a market test in Canada in 1972.
Bertold Paul Wiesner (1901–1972) was an Austrian-born physiologist noted firstly for coining the term 'Psi' to denote parapsychological phenomena; secondly for his contribution to research into human fertility and the diagnosis of pregnancy; and thirdly for being the biological father to upwards of 600 offspring by anonymously donating sperm used by his wife the obstetrician Mary Barton to perform artificial insemination on women at her private practice in the Harley Street area of London.
Lucien Antoine Maurice Brouha was a Belgian rower who later became a notable exercise physiologist in the United States. He won three medals at European Rowing Championships between 1921 and 1924. He attended the 1924 Paris Olympics but his team was eliminated in the repechage. In his early medical career, he helped develop an early pregnancy test at the University of Liège. From the 1930s, his academic interest shifted towards exercise physiology. Between 1934 and the outbreak of World War II, Brouha travelled on scholarships on several occasions to conduct research at universities in the United States. Having been imprisoned during World War I, he left Belgium for Paris due to increasing tension with Nazi Germany in early 1940.
Regina Kapeller-Adler, born Regina Kapeller, was an Austrian biochemist who, in 1934, devised an innovative test for early pregnancy based on the detection of histidine in urine. As a Jew, she was forced to leave Austria following the country's annexation into Nazi Germany in the Anschluss and went to work with the noted geneticist Francis Crew at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh.
Before immunological pregnancy tests were developed in the 1960s, women relied on urine-based pregnancy tests using animals, ranging from mice to frogs. Advancements in medical technology have enabled women to accurately check their pregnancy status by using 'pee-on-a-stick' pregnancy test kits at home. Before these accessible and convenient test kits were invented, scientists strived to discover a way in spotting pregnancy-related hormones by a natural, simple test, where animals were often included as clinical tools to facilitate the process.
Maurice Harold Friedman was an American physician and reproductive-physiology researcher. He is known for the development of the rabbit test, a pregnancy test developed in 1931 while he was teaching at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
References
- ↑ "The assay of gonadotropic extracts in the post-partum rabbit". Journal of Endocrinology. 24 (5). 1 May 1939.
- ↑ Morris Fishbein, M.D., ed. (1976). "Aschheim-Zondek Test". The New Illustrated Medical and Health Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 (Home Library ed.). New York: H. S. Stuttman Co. p. 139.
- ↑ Evans, Herbert M.; Simpson, Miriam E. (1930). "Aschheim-Zondek test for pregnancy – its present status". Calif West Med. 32 (3): 145–8. PMC 1657362 . PMID 18741327.
- ↑ Wilton, Dave (28 February 2007). "rabbit test / the rabbit died". www.wordorigins.org. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
- ↑ Howe, Marvine (10 March 1991). "Dr Maurice Friedman 87 Dies Created Rabbit Pregnancy Test". The New York Times.
- ↑ Yong, Ed (4 May 2017). "How a Frog Became the First Mainstream Pregnancy Test". The Atlantic. Retrieved 30 July 2018.