Prevalence of depression and anxiety in women newly diagnosed with vulvovaginal atrophy and dyspareunia.

Objective: To quantify the association between vulvovaginal atrophy and depression, major depressive disorder, and anxiety.

Methods: Women with vulvovaginal atrophy from the Truven Health MarketScan Commercial and Medicare Supplemental Databases (01/2010-09/2016) with ≥365 days of continuous insurance coverage before and after the first vulvovaginal atrophy/dyspareunia diagnosis (index date) were selected. Women with vulvovaginal atrophy were matched 1:3 to women without (controls) according to age, calendar year, health plan, and region.

A highly sensitive LC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous quantitation of serum androstane-3α, 17β-diol and androstane-3β, 17β-diol in post-menopausal women.

Sensitive and accurate measurement of androstane-3β,17β-diol and androstane-3α,17β-diol in the circulation is important for clinical research and accurate clinical diagnosis. This report describes a highly sensitive, specific, precise and reliable assay for the simultaneous accurate measurement of serum androstane-3α,17β-diol and androstane-3β,17β-diol in postmenopausal women. The LLOQ of 1 pg/mL has been achieved with nicotinic acid derivatization, which is superior to picolinic acid by a factor of 5 to 10 in terms of signal to noise ratio.

Efficacy of intravaginal dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) on moderate to severe dyspareunia and vaginal dryness, symptoms of vulvovaginal atrophy, and of the genitourinary syndrome of menopause.

Objective: The aim of this study is to confirm the local beneficial effects of intravaginal dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA, Prasterone) on moderate to severe dyspareunia or pain at sexual activity, the most frequent symptom of vulvovaginal atrophy due to menopause or genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM).

Methods: In a prospective, randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled phase III clinical trial, the effect of daily intravaginal 0.50% DHEA (6.

Intracrinology and menopause: the science describing the cell-specific intracellular formation of estrogens and androgens from DHEA and their strictly local action and inactivation in peripheral tissues.

The secretion of estrogens by the ovaries stops at menopause. Afterward, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) becomes the only source of both estrogens and androgens during all the postmenopausal years. To maintain very low and biologically inactive concentrations of estrogens and androgens in the circulation, DHEA is transformed intracellularly into cell-specific small amounts of estrogens and androgens (except in the endometrium) which then act and are inactivated locally in the same cells, thus avoiding biologically significant systemic exposure to active sex steroids.

Evaluation of a one-step sample preparation protocol for analysis of total serum testosterone by LC-MS/MS.

In this study, a one-step method for liquid-liquid extraction has been compared against a two-step procedure for testosterone assays in terms of accuracy, specificity, recovery, lipid removal and baseline noise, using QCs and unknown samples. The difference in accuracy was less than 5% for adult sera, while it was less than 10% for prepubescent sera. To compare specificity, the ion ratio transition of 289 → 97 to 289 → 109 was monitored for all QCs and unknown samples; no interference in the testosterone peak was observed for any tested sample prepared by either the one-step or two-step procedure.