ABSTRACT

Objective:

To investigate the relationship between peripheral androgens, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), body mass index (BMI) and transvaginal ultrasonografic endomet-rial thickness in asymptomatic postmenopausal women.

Material and Method:

Sixty three asymptomatic postmenopausal women having an amenorrhea period of at least one year and a clinical and hormonal diagnosis ( FSH>40 UI/ml) of menopause enrolled to our study. The exclusion criteria were chronic or acute disease, postmenopausal hormo-ne replacement therapy and cigarette smoking. All patients’ hormone profile (FSH, LH, E2, progesterone, prolactin, total testosterone, free testosterone, androstenedione, DHEA-S and SHBG) was tested; height and weight was taken and BMI was calculated. According to the endometrial thickness the patients were divided into two groups: those with endo-metrial thickness of 5 mm or less (1st group) and those with endometrium thicker than 5 mm (2nd group).

Results:

The mean endometrial thickness was 4.22±1.57mm. There was a positive correlation between BMI and endometrial thickness (p: 0.04) and negative one between SHBG and BMI (p: 0.043). The correlation analysis pointed out a weak nega-tive relation between SHBG and endometrial thickness (p: 0.09). There was a correlation between bioavailable testos-terone and body mass index (r: 0.77; p: 0.0001); and between bioavailable testosterone and endometrial thickness but was not statistically significant (p: 0.486).

Conclusion:

Our research efforts have focused primarily on the relation between peripheral androgens, obesity and endometrial thickness. The high circulating levels of testos-terone in obese women affected the endometrial thickness as higher levels were associated with thicker endometrium. Our study suggests that androgens may contribute to the development of endometrial proliferative diseases.