Method detecting ovulation by monitoring dodecanol concentration in saliva

• US 4,385,125 A
• Filed: 11/14/1980
• Issued: 05/24/1983
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/1980
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Monell Chemical Senses Center (Main Line Health System), Trustees Of The University Of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania)
• Original Assignee: Monell Chemical Senses Center (Main Line Health System)
• Inventors: Preti, George, Huggins, George R., Kostelc, James G., Tonzetich, Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Marantz, Sidney
• Application Number:
  US06/206,949
• Time in Patent Office: 921 Days
• Field of Search: 23/230 B, 436/65
• US Class Current: 436/65
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/48 Biological material, e.g. blood, urine G01N33/02, G01N33/26, G01N33/44, G01N33/46 take precedence; Haemocytometers counting blood corpuscules distributed over a surface by scanning the surface G06M11/02
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 436/203332 Hydroxyl containing

Abstract

Method for precisely ascertaining the time of ovulation by monitoring the concentration of alcohols in the range of C₁₀ -C₁₆, particularly dodecanol. A spike in the concentration of such compound(s) is indicative of time of ovulation.

Claims

1. A method of diagnosing ovulation in female mammals comprising the steps of:

(a) monitoring the saliva of one of said mammals during the fertility cycle for a dodecanol occurring in the saliva of said mammals; and

(b) providing an indicator means for qualitatively and quantitatively responding to variations in the concentration of said dodecanol in said saliva;

whereby said means for indicating said variations in concentration diagnosis ovulation in said female mammal.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said female mammal is a human female.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said indicator is a gas chromograph-mass spectrometer.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said method comprises the steps of incubating said saliva for a preselected period of time and monitoring the concentration of said dodecanol in said saliva.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein said preselected period of time is from between about 30 to 120 minutes at about 37°

C.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said indicator means responds to increases in the concentration of said dodecanol.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said increases of concentration of said dodecanol represent at least a doubling of the concentration of said dodecanol in said saliva.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said increases in dodecanol represent an increase of about four times the concentration of said dodecanol in said saliva.