Alterations in Lipid Profile Upon Uterine Fibroids and Its Recurrence

Abstract

Background. Uterine fibroids (UF) is the most common (about 70% cases) type of gynecological disease, with the recurrence rate varying from 11% to 40%. Because UF has no distinct symptomatology and is often asymptomatic, the specific and sensitive diagnosis of UF as well as the assessment for the probability of UF recurrence pose considerable challenge.Aim. The aim of this study was to characterize alterations in the lipid profile of tissues associated with the first-time diagnosed UF and recurrent uterine fibroids (RUF) and to explore the potential of mass spectrometry (MS) lipidomics analysis of blood plasma samples for the sensitive and specific determination of UF and RUF with low invasiveness of analysis.Materials and methods. MS analysis of lipid levels in the myometrium tissues, fibroids tissues and blood plasma samples was carried out on 66 patients, including35 patients with first-time diagnosed UF and 31 patients with RUF. The control group consisted of 15 patients who underwent surgical treatment for the intrauterine septum. Fibroids and myometrium tissue samples were analyzed using direct MS approach. Blood plasma samples were analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography hyphened with mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS). MS data were processed by discriminant analysis with projection into latent structures (OPLS-DA).Results. Significant differences were found between the first-time UF, RUF and control group in the levels of lipids involved in the metabolism of glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, lipids with an ether bond, triglycerides and fatty acids. Significant differences between the control group and the groups with UF and RUF were found in the blood plasma levels of cholesterol esters, triacylglycerols, (lyso) phosphatidylcholines and sphingomyelins. Significant differences between the UF and RUF groups were found in the blood plasma levels of cholesterol esters, phosphotidylcholines, sphingomyelins and triacylglycerols. Diagnostic models based on the selected differential lipids using logistic regression showed sensitivity and specificity of 88% and 86% for the diagnosis of first-time UF and 95% and 79% for RUF, accordingly.Conclusion. This study confirms the involvement of lipids in the pathogenesis of uterine fibroids. A diagnostically significant panel of differential lipid species has been identified for the diagnosis of UF and RUF by low-invasive blood plasma analysis. The developed diagnostic models demonstrated high potential for clinical use and further research in this direction.

Phenome-wide Mendelian randomization study of plasma triglycerides and 2,600 disease traits

“…Prior studies had reported correlational associations between many of these diseases and plasma TG levels or risk factors correlated to plasma TGs. For example, studies had documented positive correlations between leiomyoma risk and plasma TG levels (Uimari et al, 2016) (Tonoyan et al, 2021) (Peshkova et al, 2020). Others had shown diverticular disease risk is positively associated with BMI, body fat percentage, and visceral fat area (Shih et al, 2022) (Freckelton et al, 2018) (Böhm, 2021).…”