Abstract
Naloxone, an opioid antagonist, increases LH/FSH blood levels in adults. The absent response in prepuberty may be caused by an insensitive, unstimulated pituitary. Therefore we studied LH/FSH secretion during naloxone infusion before and after LHRH priming. Protocol: three prepubertal boys aged 13.1-14.6 yrs (BA 10.4-12.3), Testosterone (T) 0.4-0.9 nmol/1, received LHRH 20 μg/1.7m2 every 90 min iv during 42 hrs. Before as well as 7 days after pulsatile LHRH treatment naloxone was infused iv from 10.00-13.00h 2 mg/-1.7m2/h. At 13.00h a LHRH test was performed. LH and FSH was measured from 9.00-15.00h at 15 min intervals. In 2 pts the study was repeated in a pubertal stage (G3).
Results: in all three prepubertal boys naloxone did not elicit an increase of LH or FSH, neither before nor after LHRH priming, while the LH and FSH response to the LHRH test had distinctly increased after LHRH priming. In the 2 pubertal boys basal LH and FSH were within the same range; T was 4.5 and 13 nmol/l. Naloxone induced a clear LH increase with two LH pulses only in the boy with a T of 13 nmol/l, before as well as after LHRH priming.
Conclusion: naloxone cannot induce a LH/FSH increase in prepuberty even not after LHRH priming; in puberty an increase can be elicited. Therefore the opioids take no major part in the LHRH “intrinsic restraint” during prepuberty, but play a role in the sex steroid negative feedback, which becomes operative during puberty.
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Delemarre-van de Waal, H. 129 PUBERTY CHANGES THE CONADOTROPIN RESPONSE TO ANLOXONE INFUSION. Pediatr Res 24, 538 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198810000-00150
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198810000-00150