Urinary Excretion of Individual 17-ketosteroids by Normal Children.

Our knowledge of the functions of the normal and diseased adrenal cortex in adults is still slight and we know even less about it in newborn babies and in children. In the past few years an increasing number of methods for examining adrenal function have been described. In addition to the determination of the total amount of 17-ketosteroids (17-KS) and of 17-hydroxycorticoids (17-OH) excreted in urine, various methods for fractionating these compounds have been used, which are more suitable for studying normal function and various pathological mechanisms of the adrenal gland and of the gonads. Although data on adults exist, there is little information available on the determination of individual 17-KS from the urine of children. Therefore, it seemed to us useful to determine the urinary steroids in healthy children of various ages.