Ovarian cancer risk in premenopausal and perimenopausal women treated with Tamoxifen: a case–control study

As tamoxifen stimulates ovarian steroidogenesis in premenopausal women, induces ovulation and increases the incidence of benign ovarian cysts, there has been concern that it might also increase ovarian cancer risk in women treated premenopausally. In a national case–control study in Britain, treatment histories were collected for 158 cases of ovarian cancer after breast cancer diagnosed at ages under 55 years and 464 controls who had breast cancer at these ages without subsequent ovarian cancer. Risk of ovarian cancer was not raised for women overall who had taken tamoxifen (odds ratio (OR)=0.9, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.6–1.3) or for those treated when premenopausal (OR=1.0, 95% CI 0.6–1.6) or perimenopausal (OR=0.7, 95% CI 0.2–2.4). There was also no relation of risk to daily dose, duration or cumulative dose of tamoxifen, or time since last use. There was, however, a significantly raised risk in relation to non-hormonal chemotherapy. The results suggest that tamoxifen treatment of premenopausal or perimenopausal women does not materially affect ovarian cancer risk, but that non-hormonal chemotherapy might increase risk

Follicular fluid content and oocyte quality: from single biochemical markers to metabolomics

The assessment of oocyte quality in human in vitro fertilization (IVF) is getting increasing attention from embryologists. Oocyte selection and the identification of the best oocytes, in fact, would help to limit embryo overproduction and to improve the results of oocyte cryostorage programs. Follicular fluid (FF) is easily available during oocyte pick-up and theorically represents an optimal source on non-invasive biochemical predictors of oocyte quality. Unfortunately, however, the studies aiming to find a good molecular predictor of oocyte quality in FF were not able to identify substances that could be used as reliable markers of oocyte competence to fertilization, embryo development and pregnancy. In the last years, a well definite trend toward passing from the research of single molecular markers to more complex techniques that study all metabolites of FF has been observed. The metabolomic approach is a powerful tool to study biochemical predictors of oocyte quality in FF, but its application in this area is still at the beginning. This review provides an overview of the current knowledge about the biochemical predictors of oocyte quality in FF, describing both the results coming from studies on single biochemical markers and those deriving from the most recent studies of metabolomic

Circulating endothelin-3 and prolactin concentrations in healthy lactating women during the early puerperium

Objective: To study the association between the circulating concentrations of endothelin-3 and prolactin in the early puerperium. Design: Prospective clinical study, including twenty-five healthy puerperal women breast-feeding their healthy full-term infants. Methods: Venous blood was drawn on day 1 and 4 post partum, and plasma endothelin-3 and serum prolactin were determined. Results: Circulating endothelin-3 and prolactin levels on day 4 did not differ significantly from the corresponding levels on day 1. However, a significant negative correlation was found on day 4 between endothelin-3 and prolactin Values (r = -0.688, P < 0.001) and an even stronger negative association existed between the net change in endothelin-3 from days 1 to 4 and the corresponding change in prolactin values (r = -0.732, P < 0.001). Conclusions: On the fourth day post partum, lactating healthy women show negative correlation between circulating endothelin-3 and prolactin levels. Whether this indicates a role for endothelin-3 in the control of prolactin secretion in the post partum period remains to be clarified