Abraham, G. E., & Hargrove, J. T. (1990). Diagnosis and treatment of premenstrual syndrome. Fertility and Sterility, 54(1), 178-179. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0015-0282(16)53661-9
Abraham GE, Hargrove JT. Diagnosis and treatment of premenstrual syndrome. Fertil Steril. 1990;54(1):178-179. doi:10.1016/s0015-0282(16)53661-9
Abraham, G. E., and J. T. Hargrove. "Diagnosis and treatment of premenstrual syndrome." Fertility and Sterility, vol. 54, no. 1, 1990, pp. 178-179.
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PMS Diagnosis and Drug Treatment Divided Two Research Teams
This is a published letter and reply in Fertility and Sterility. Dr. Abraham and Dr. Hargrove challenged an earlier PMS paper by Dr. Smith and Dr. Schiff over its diagnosis methods and alprazolam advice. Two research teams traded public letters disputing PMS diagnosis methods and drug treatment advice. Smith and Schiff answered each point.
Key Findings
Abraham and Hargrove said Smith and Schiff misquoted their earlier study by claiming it used no daily symptom ratings. The reply agreed daily scoring had been collected.
Abraham and Hargrove said a figure in the Smith and Schiff paper reproduced one of their own published PMS figures without credit.
Abraham and Hargrove objected to recommending alprazolam as routine PMS treatment, pointing to its link to drug dependency admissions.
Smith and Schiff replied that Abraham and Hargrove's own 1980 study screened patients by recall, then confirmed PMS using placebo-cycle data, excluding 13 of 38 subjects.
Smith and Schiff called alprazolam a second-line option, reserved for patients who had not responded to non-drug measures first, and agreed abuse risk needed monitoring.
Interpretation
This is a letter and reply exchange. Abraham and Hargrove said Smith and Schiff had misrepresented their diagnostic methods and overstated alprazolam's role in PMS treatment. Smith and Schiff agreed the daily symptom data existed, said the two teams differ in how they diagnose PMS, and said their alprazolam advice had been misread. The authors note that PMS had no standardized diagnostic criteria at the time, which is why the two teams used different methods on similar patients.
RRM Context
The letters point to a real gap. PMS diagnosis in 1990 had no standard rules, so two teams could argue about the same patients. RRM's cycle-charting approach was built for this problem. The approach tracks daily symptoms against the cycle before naming a diagnosis. RRM's root-cause approach asks why symptoms happen.
Our editorial summary of this paper, not the article's abstract.
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