Expression of estrogen receptors in the pelvic floor of pre- and post-menopausal women presenting pelvic organ prolapse

Abstract

The precise role of estrogen in the pathogenesis of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is still unclear, while the results concerning the effect of selective estrogen receptor modulators on pelvic organ prolapse are contradictory. Our aim was to test whether alteration in the expression of estrogen receptors in the pelvic floor of preand post-menopausal women is related to genital prolapse status. The mRNA levels of ER<i>&#945;</i> and ER<i>&#946;</i> in 60 biopsy specimens were measured. Significantly higher expression of ER<i>&#945;</i> and higher ER<i>&#945;</i>/ER<i>&#946;</i> ratio were demonstrated in post-menopausal women compared to pre-menopausal women. Higher expression of ER<i>&#945;</i> and higher ER<i>&#945;</i>/ER<i>&#946;</i> ratio were detected in all studied groups with POP, thus it did not reach significance in the post-menopausal group. Pre-menopausal and post-menopausal women presenting pelvic organ prolapse had no difference in the ER<i>&alpha;</i> expression. Our preliminary study may indicate that pelvic organ prolapse is associated with higher expression of ER<i>&#945;</i>/ER<i>&#946;</i> in the pelvic floor of both pre- and post-menopausal women; thus not reaching statistical significance in the post-menopausal women was probably due to the group&#8217;s size. We believe that the inevitable changes in the estrogen receptor expression over women&#8217;s different lifetimes may affect the risk of genital prolapse progression, and might contribute to the further search for appropriate selective estrogen receptor modulators as a treatment for women with pelvic organ prolapse. (<i>Folia Histochemica et Cytobiologica 2011; Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 521&#8211;527</i>)

Keywords

• estrogen receptor
• menopause
• pelvic organ prolapse
• RT-PCR
• SERMs