Climacteric : the Journal of the International Menopause Society

The clinical effects of testosterone in women have expanded from the field of androgen excess to consideration of testosterone action and the consequences of depletion and replacement. This article is not a comprehensive review of the vast and increasing literature in this field. Rather, it summarizes some of what is known of testosterone in women that the author elected to highlight in a plenary lecture and is hopefully informative, but not to be considered conclusive.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest gynecological endocrinopathy. Little is known about the exact etiopathogenesis and cardiometabolic mortality and morbidity in women with PCOS. PCOS is beyond the cosmetic concerns of an adolescent and fertility concerns of an adult and can cause serious unhealthy consequences in perimenopausal and postmenopausal age. This area needs to be assessed and addressed since the majority of these patients are lost to follow-up after completion of their families. Good evidence suggests that there are significant racial and ethnic differences in prevalence, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, hyperandrogenemia and the related cardiometabolic risk in women with PCOS...

OBJECTIVE: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is highly aggressive and leads to a poor prognosis. microRNA-181a (miR-181a) exhibits strong antineoplastic effects in many types of cancer. In this study, we examine the responses of human miR-181a-transfected TNBC cells and explore the mechanisms underlying the observed effects. METHODS: A series of cellular assays were conducted using cells from the MDA-MB-231 TNBC line to assess the impact of miR-181a overexpression...

The peer review process is an inalienable necessity in the modern scientific world. Published manuscripts are founded on feedback, a process in which reviewers evaluate the scientific values of the submitted paper and provide comments and criticisms. The aim of this process is to assist authors by improving their papers, to promote good science. The peer-review process can be represented as a hurdle race with the ultimate prize of innovative accurate scientific knowledge being published. In this process, we have on the one side the authors and originators of ideas and on the other editors and reviewers...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the effects of estetrol (E4) on hemostasis, lipids, carbohydrate metabolism and bone turnover in postmenopausal women. METHODS: This study was a multicenter, randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled phase 2 trial. Participants ( n  = 180, age 43-64 years) received E4 2.5 mg, 5 mg, 10 mg and 15 mg or placebo once daily for 12 weeks. Changes from baseline at week 12 were evaluated versus placebo for hemostasis parameters, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), lipids, carbohydrate metabolism and bone markers...

This review was conducted to explore the association between endogenous testosterone blood concentrations and cognitive performance among community dwelling postmenopausal women. We searched Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases for observational studies with at least 100 postmenopausal participants. The results were categorized by study design, reporting of total or free testosterone and risk of bias assessments, narratively. Ten of the 26 articles retrieved for full-text review met the inclusion criteria, six provided cross-sectional data, seven provided longitudinal data and one provided case-control data...

OBJECTIVE: This article aimed to study the use of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) among Spanish perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, the presence of menopausal symptoms and the sources of information. METHODS: The epidemiological study using a survey included Spanish perimenopausal or postmenopausal women aged between 40 and 70 years in August 2021. RESULTS: A total of 1254 women were included. In the postmenopausal group, 86% reported one or more menopausal symptoms; the most frequent was vulvovaginal dryness (57%)...

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore women's and clinician's experiences and acceptability of telehealth use within a specialized multidisciplinary menopause service during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: In-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews were analyzed via thematic inductive approaches. Telehealth acceptability was guided by the Nonadoption, Abandonment, and Challenges to the Scale-Up, Spread, and Sustainability of Health and Care Technologies (NASSS) framework...

OBJECTIVE: Oral but not transdermal menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) increases the risk of venous thromboembolism. There is no evidence regarding the risk of the serious complication pulmonary embolism (PE). The aim was to investigate the risk of PE in women using MHT depending on administration route, type of progestin and treatment duration. METHOD: The population-based case-control study covered 1,771,253 women aged 40-69 years, during 2006-2015. Diagnoses of PE ( n  = 13,974) and drug dispensations were received from national validated registers...

OBJECTIVE: The association of pregnancy with later-life cognition is not well understood. We examined whether full-term and incomplete pregnancies were associated with cognition in a sample of postmenopausal women, and whether socioeconomic status (SES) factors mediated these relationships. METHODS: A total of 1016 cognitively normal women from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were examined. Cognitive measures included the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), Animal Fluency (AF) and the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) Word Learning (CERAD-WL) and Delayed Recall (CERAD-DR) tasks...

OBJECTIVES: This qualitative study assessed the value of a primary care-based interprofessional clinical team for adults with Turner syndrome (TS) utilizing patient perspectives. METHODS: Ten patients within one institution's interprofessional adult TS clinic participated in one of two semi-structured focus groups. Content analysis was used to classify content provided by participants into themes and sub-themes using Dedoose software. RESULTS: Participants found that their quality of care and life were both improved due to the presence of the interprofessional Adults with TS Clinic...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the modulatory effects of menopause hormone therapy (MHT) on mood disorders among postmenopausal women. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted to recruit postmenopausal women, including patients (arranged MHT for over 3 years as the medication group) and non-MHT controls. All participants were asked to respond to the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (GAD-7) questionnaires to assess their depression and anxiety status...

Midlife women commonly experience changes in their cognitive function as they transition through menopause and express concern about whether these changes represent the initial stages of a more serious cognitive disorder. Health-care practitioners play an important role in counseling women on cognitive changes at midlife and normalizing women's experience. The aim of this commissioned International Menopause Society White Paper on cognition is to provide practitioners with an overview of data informing the clinical care of menopausal women and a framework for clinical counseling and decision-making...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to analyze the medium-term outcomes of ultralight type I mesh for postmenopausal women with recurrent severe posterior vaginal prolapse (PVP). METHODS: All participants underwent transvaginal ultralight type I mesh repair between April 2016 and April 2021 and were followed until May 2022. Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification System (POP-Q) staging, mesh-related complications, Patient Global Impression of Improvement (PGI-I) scale and quality of life questionnaire responses were evaluated...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) types and breast cancer (BC) incidence in postmenopausal women in Korea. METHODS: The nested case-control study used data from the National Health Insurance Service database. Among the women aged ≥50 years who menopaused between 2004 and 2007, BC incidence up to 2017 was analyzed in 36,446 women using or having used HRT for >1 year and in 36,446 women who did not use any HRT for more than 1 year...

BACKGROUND: Due to safety concerns on estrogen-based treatments for genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM) in breast cancer survivors (BCS), new options are appearing, such as androgen-based treatments, which according to proprieties would not be transformed systemically to estrogens in patients receiving aromatase inhibitors (AIs). OBJECTIVE: The aim of this pilot study is to assess the security and efficacy of vaginal prasterone (dehydroepiandrostenedione [DHEA]) in BCS treated with AIs...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to find evidence that progesterone receptor membrane component 1 (PGRMC1) promotes estradiol (E2) + norethisterone (NET)-induced breast cancer proliferation through activation of the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)-AKT pathway. METHODS: PGRMC1-mediated breast cancer cellular proliferation and phosphorylation of PGRMC1 were studied using wild-type (hemagglutinin [HA]-tagged) MCF-7 cells, which were stably transfected with expression vector containing HA (MCF-7-HA cells), PGRMC1 (MCF-7-PGRMC1 cells) and Ser181 point mutated PGRMC1 (MCF-7-PGRMC1-S181A cells)...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVE: Hot flashes are one of the major symptoms of climacteric syndrome. Despite the high prevalence of these symptoms, few questionnaires assessing the impact of hot flashes on quality of life have been validated. The aim of this study was to validate a French version of the Hot Flash Related Daily Interference Scale (HFRDIS) in a sample of French women. METHODS: In this prospective study, data were obtained from two groups of women aged between 40 and 60 years from both women without breast cancer and women under hormone therapy for breast cancer between March 2021 and February 2022...