Endocrine Abstracts

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age. Hormonal disturbances, metabolic disorders, and more recently, chronic inflammation have been considered in pathogenesis of PCOS. One of the determinants of inflammation investigated in terms of insulin resistance (IR) is paraoxonase 1 (PON1).

Aim: To evaluate PCOS patients for the existence of chronic inflammation and to assess the relationship among PON1 polymorphism and hormonal, metabolic and inflammatory parameters in these women.

Material and methods: We studied 130 PCOS women and 70 controls. Anthropometric, hormonal (testosterone, androstendione, DHEA-S, LH, FSH), metabolic (fasting glucose and insulin, OGTT, insulin sensitivity and resistance indices, lipids) and inflammatory parameters (hsCRP, fibrinogen, white blood cells count-WBC) and analysis of PON1 Leu55Met polymorphism were carried out.

Results: WBC, fibrinogen and hsCRP levels did not differ significantly between the PCOS women and the controls. Positive correlation of inflammatory indicators with anthropometric, metabolic parameters and the IR indices was observed in the PCOS women. Negative correlation was observed between inflammatory markers, insulin sensitivity indices and the concentration of SHBG. A positive correlation was shown between inflammatory markers and FAI, negative with the LH/FSH ratio.

Frequency of the Leu55Met PON1 polymorphism genotype was similar in both, the PCOS and the control groups. A significantly greater number of leukocytes was observed in the PCOS patients with the Met55Met and Leu55Leu genotypes than those with the Leu55Met genotype. There were no relationships between PON1 genotypes and hormonal, metabolic parameters in PCOS women.

Conclusions: Low-grade chronic inflammation was not observed in PCOS women, thus there is no direct link between inflammation and PCOS markers per se. A low-grade chronic inflammation is related with central obesity and insulin resistance. None of the variants of Leu55Met PON1 polymorphism was associated neither with more frequent occurrence of PCOS nor metabolic disorders, including IR.