Cyproterone acetate or spironolactone in lowering testosterone concentrations for transgender individuals receiving oestradiol therapy

BACKGROUND:Estradiol with or without an antiandrogen (cyproterone acetate or spironolactone) is commonly prescribed in transfeminine individuals who have not had orchidectomy, however there is no evidence to guide optimal treatment choice. OBJECTIVE:We aimed to compare add-on cyproterone acetate versus spironolactone in lowering endogenous testosterone concentrations in transfeminine individuals. DESIGN:Retrospective cross-sectional study. METHODS:We analysed 114 transfeminine individuals who had been on estradiol therapy for >6 months in two gender clinics in Melbourne, Australia. Total testosterone concentrations were compared between three groups; estradiol alone (n=21), estradiol plus cyproterone acetate (n=21) and estradiol plus spironolactone (n=38). Secondary outcomes included serum estradiol concentration, estradiol valerate dose, blood pressure, serum potassium, urea and creatinine. RESULTS:Median age was 27.0 years (22.5, 45.1) and median duration of hormone therapy was 1.5 years (0.9, 2.6), which was not different between groups. On univariate analysis, the cyproterone group had significantly lower total testosterone concentrations (0.8nmol/L (0.6, 1.20)) compared with the spironolactone group (2.0nmol/L (0.9, 9.4), p=0.037) and estradiol alone group (10.5nmol/L (4.9, 17.2), p<0.001), which remained significant (p=0.005) after adjustments for estradiol concentration, dose and age. Serum urea was higher in the spironolactone group compared with the cyproterone group. No differences were observed in total daily estradiol dose, blood pressure, serum estradiol, potassium or creatinine. CONCLUSIONS:The cyproterone group achieved serum total testosterone concentrations in the female reference range. As spironolactone may cause feminisation without inhibition of steroidogenesis, it is unclear which anti-androgen is more effective at feminisation. Further prospective studies are required.Lachlan Angus, Shalem Leemaqz, Olivia Ooi, Pauline Cundill, Nicholas Silberstein, Peter Locke, Jeffrey D Zajac and Ada S Cheun

Nucleosomes in gene regulation: theoretical approaches

This work reviews current theoretical approaches of biophysics and bioinformatics for the description of nucleosome arrangements in chromatin and transcription factor binding to nucleosomal organized DNA. The role of nucleosomes in gene regulation is discussed from molecular-mechanistic and biological point of view. In addition to classical problems of this field, actual questions of epigenetic regulation are discussed. The authors selected for discussion what seem to be the most interesting concepts and hypotheses. Mathematical approaches are described in a simplified language to attract attention to the most important directions of this field

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is a second generation water Cherenkov detector designed to determine whether the currently observed solar neutrino deficit is a result of neutrino oscillations. The detector is unique in its use of D2O as a detection medium, permitting it to make a solar model-independent test of the neutrino oscillation hypothesis by comparison of the charged- and neutral-current interaction rates. In this paper the physical properties, construction, and preliminary operation of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory are described. Data and predicted operating parameters are provided whenever possible.Comment: 58 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Nucl. Inst. Meth. Uses elsart and epsf style files. For additional information about SNO see http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca . This version has some new reference

Exciting traveling waves in high Q structures using microstrip

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