Physicochemical and immunological characterization of an HCG-like substance from human pituitary glands

A Case Report of Elevated hCG Levels In Menopause - A Clinical Dilemma

“…Elevated hCG levels have also been reported in pre and post-menopausal women with chronic kidney disease [8]; however our patient although post-menopausal had normal kidney function. Mildly elevated hCG after menopause is well diagnosed with other reported cases in the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] but concomitant nausea and vomiting has not been reported to the best of our knowledge. It is possible that even mild elevations in hCG can result in nausea and vomiting similar to morning sickness experienced during pregnancy.…”

“…Snyder et al [9] reported that concentrations of hCG in non-pregnant women increase with age resulting in false-positive hCG elevations in non-pregnant peri-or postmenopausal group and has also suggested to increase the upper limits of normal of serum hCG for post-menopausal women to 14.0 IU/L. Furthermore, hCG has also been localized through immunostaining to the gonadotrophs of the pituitary glands in post-menopausal females [6][7][8][9][10]. This confirms the pituitary source of hCG production.…”

“…The most likely explanation is the reduction of ovarian steroid hormone synthesis that releases the negative feedback control of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Under this overstimulation, the pituitary may secrete hCG [5,6]. However hCG release from a pituitary adenoma as the sole endocrine disturbance has rarely been reported.…”

Hormones of the Placenta: hCG and hPL

“…The most active fraction was about 5% as potent as hCG itself; this was detected using antisera to the C-terrninal residues 123-145 10 40 and 116-145, which react to hCG but not to LH. Minute amounts of hCG or the j3-subunit have also been found in many normal tissues (Braunstein et al, 1979;Yoshimoto et al, 1979), in pituitaries (Matsuura et al, 1980), especially of post-menopausal females (Armstrong et al, 1984;Huang et al, 1984), and in the urine of non-pregnant subjects (H.C. Chen et al, 1978;D.M. Robertson et al, 1978).…”

Immunohistochemical Localization of a Human Chorionic Gonadotropin-Like Substance in the Human Pituitary Gland*

“…terization of the substance indicated that this might be the precursor of pituitary gonadotropins (6,12). The purpose of the present study was to localize the hCG-like substance in human pituitary gonadotropin-producing cells (gonadotrophs) in order to obtain more clear-cut information as to the nature of the substance.…”