No abstract

Between the start of GnRHa and age 22 years the lumbar areal BMD z score (for natal sex) in transwomen decreased significantly from -0.8 to -1.4 and in transmen there was a trend for decrease from 0.2 to -0.3. This suggests that the BMD was below their pretreatment potential and either attainment of peak bone mass has been delayed or peak bone mass itself is attenuated.

Women undergo important changes in sex hormones throughout their lifetime that can impact cardiovascular disease risk. Whereas the traditional cardiovascular risk factors dominate in older age, there are several female-specific risk factors and inflammatory risk variables that influence a woman’s risk at younger and middle age. Hypertensive pregnancy disorders and gestational diabetes are associated with a higher risk in younger women. Menopause transition has an additional adverse effect to ageing that may demand specific attention to ensure optimal cardiovascular risk profile and quality of life. In this position paper, we provide an update of gynaecological and obstetric conditions that interact with cardiovascular risk in women. Practice points for clinical use are given according to the latest standards from various related disciplines (Figure 1).

Background: A successful outcome of pregnancy depends on proper placental formation. In the very beginning of this process, trophoblast invasion and fibrin deposition into the wall of the decidual veins play an important part. Two polymorphisms, coagulation factor XIII (FXIII) Val34Leu and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) 4G/5G, interfere with fibrin cross-linking and regulation of fibrinolysis and may therefore contribute to early pregnancy loss. Methods: We enrolled 49 unrelated Caucasian women with a history of two consecutive or three to six nonconsecutive early pregnancy losses and 48 unrelated parous healthy controls without a history of pregnancy loss and evaluated them for the following genetic variants: the factor V Leiden and prothrombin G20210A gene mutations, the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase C677T and A1298C polymorphisms, and the PAI-1 4G/5G and FXIII Val34Leu polymorphisms. Results: For the isolated occurrence of PAI-1 4G/5G or FXIII Val34Leu, we found no statistically significant difference between cases and controls. For homozygosity of either or compound carrier status of both mutations, the overall relative risk for early pregnancy loss was significantly increased (odds ratio ‫؍‬ 2.4; 95% con-

The transcription factor Oct-4 is crucial for the maintenance of cell pluripotency and is known to be expressed in embryonic stem cells, germ cells and whole embryos at various stages of development. Oct-4 regulates cell fate in a dose-dependent manner and plays a key role in germ-cell tumours. In the past, several stem-cell markers have been detected, and their role in the pathogenesis of diseases has been discussed frequently. Thus, we investigated the expression of Oct-4 comparing its occurrence in endometrium of healthy and diseased women using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and RT-PCR. IHC demonstrated Oct-4 expression in 25 of 60 sections (42%), respectively in 11 out of 25 patients (44%). Oct-4 mRNA was detected by RT-PCR in all tested samples (9 of 9) of endometrium, although the levels of expression varied. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating Oct-4 expression in human endometrium.