Salicylates and Gastro-intestinal Bleeding

Urinary H.C.G. assays have been performed in 90 patients with hyperemesis gravidarum and the results have been compared with those in a series of 20 normally pregnant women. The hyperemesis patients were observed in Aberdeen and in Newcastle upon Tyne and the normal subjects in Newcastle upon Tyne and in Edinburgh. The mean H.C.G. excretion from the seventh week of pregnancy onwards in the hyperemesis patients from Aberdeen did not differ significantly from the corresponding value in the Newcastle upon Tyne cases. From the 7th to the 15th week of pregnancy the mean H.C.G. excretion in the hyperemesis patients was significantly lower than that in the normally pregnant women. From the 15th to the 20th week of pregnancy a significant difference between the two groups was not observed. At all stages of pregnancy investigated the mean H.C.G. excretion of the group of normal subjects from Newcastle upon Tyne was significantly higher than that in the series of normal subjects from Edinburgh.