EDITORIAL SYNOPSIS Raised urinary oestrogen excretion was noted in 16 men and women with liver disease. The study suggests that the increased output of urinary oestrogens was usually due to increased secretion rates of the primary oestrogenic hormones rather than to impaired oestrogen metabolism by the liver.Numerous workers have reported a raised output of urinary oestrogens in men and women with various types of liver disease. Glass, Edmonson, and Soll (1940), Rupp, Cantarow, Rakoff, and Paschkis (1951), Pincus, Rakoff, Cohen, and Tumen (1951), and Dohan, Richardson, Bluemle, and Gyorgy (1952), using bioassay methods, all found in approximately 48% of the patients studied values which usually were less than twice the normal maximum but occasionally were as high as seven times the normal. Later workers, using colorimetric measurements, have investigated a smaller number of patients and have found raised values in only approximately 20% of the cases, and no value has exceeded twice the normal maximum (Cameron, 1957;Lyngbye and Mogensen, 1961). This raised output has been attributed to impaired metabolism by the diseased liver but evidence for this concept has been conflicting. Glass, Edmonson, and Soll (1944) administered oestrone and oestradiol to three patients with liver disease and recovered 83-86% of the biological activity of the administered dose in the urine whereas values of 10% would have been expected for normal individuals. On the other hand, Dohan et al. (1952) and Cameron (1957) measured endogenous urinary oestriol, oestrone, and oestradiol separately and found that the major urinary oestrogen in liver disease is often oestriol, which is the least biologically active of the three. After the administration of oestrone, oestradiol, or their esters to patients with liver disease, St0a, Bass0e, and Emberland (1958), in a study of five cases, found a decreased recovery as the three oestrogens in two and an increased recovery in one, and Lyngbye and 'Present address: Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. 2Present address: