Accessory and Cavitated Uterine Mass (ACUM) in an 18-Year-Old Woman: A Case Report and Literature Review

Background Accessory and cavitated uterine mass (ACUM) is a rare uterine anomaly newly recognized as a form of developmental Mullerian anomaly, which represents a non-communicating uterus-like mass within an otherwise normal uterus. It is a benign gynecological disease associated with severe dysmenorrhea and chronic pelvic pain, which is most common in young nullipara women, and sometimes develops in parous women. Clinical manifestations combined with imaging examinations including ultrasonography (USG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and hysterosalpingography (HSG) are the means to establish a correct diagnosis. Medical therapy is only marginally effective, but laparoscopic surgery for complete mass excision is a feasible technique to relieve patient’s symptoms. Our article is aimed to report a case of ACUM in an 18-year-old woman and summarize the diagnostic criteria of ACUM. Case presentation : An 18-year-old woman was admitted for severe pain in the right lower abdomen during menstruation, which lasted more than 1 year. The patient was misdiagnosed with focal adenomyosis at our hospital on March 4, 2021. After 4 months, she was diagnosed with ACUM. Once diagnosis as focal adenomyosis, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and gestrinone were administered to the patient. Following the diagnosis of ACUM, she received laparoscopic surgery. Our follow-up indicated that the symptom was significantly relief without drug therapy after sixty days postoperatively. Conclusions Clinical manifestations and imaging examinations are used to establish the diagnosis of ACUM. Medical therapy is only marginally effective, but laparoscopic surgery for complete mass excision is a feasible technique to solve the pain symptom. The prevalence and pathogenesis of ACUM and its reproductive outcomes on patients remain unclear, which calls for more and deeper research to study.

P–454 Oocyte vitrification for fertility preservation in women with benign gynecological disease: French national clinical guidelines with a modified Delphi consensus process

Study question Is there consensual clinical practices about fertility preservation (FP) for benign gynecological diseases BGD)? Summary answer A consensus study using the modified Delphi method identified 28 consensual practices concerning oocyte vitrification for fertility preservation in women with benign gynecological disease. What is known already Clinical Practical international guidelines are still published in oncology for offering standardized information and care for adults and children with cancer. Recently, the ESHRE Female Fertility Preservation Guideline Development Group published recommendations for healthcare professionals involved in fertility preservation for post-pubertal women and transgender adolescents and young adults. However, benign gynecological indications weren’t distinctly individualized of malignant conditions. There’s a lack of large cohort studies assessing the risks and outcome of FP for benign gynecological diseases. Healthcare professionals need consensus for defining the “good” indications of FP for benign gynecological diseases that could impair fertility. Study design, size, duration A steering group composed by 14 healthcare professionals and a patient representative with lived experience of endometriosis identified 42 potential practices concerning fertility preservation for benign gynecological disease. Then, 114 key stakeholders including various healthcare professionals (n = 108) and patient representatives(n = 6) were asked to answer at two rounds of a modified Delphi via an online survey from February to September 2020. Participants/materials, setting, methods Participants had to score 42 items for the first round and 31 for the second round using a nine-point Likert scale. These statements were distributed into five categories: Information to deliver to age-reproductive women with a BGD (n = 9), technical aspect of fertility preservation for BGD (n = 6), indications of FP for endometriosis (n = 13), indications of FP for none-endometriosis BGD (n = 10), idiopathic diminished ovarian reserve in the absence of gynecologic and endocrinologic diseases (n = 4). Main results and the role of chance Survey response of stakeholders was 75% (86 out of 114) for the round 1 and 87% (75 out of 86) for the round 2. Consensus recommendations were achieved for 28 items, and no consensus between stakeholders was achieved in the remaining items. Stakeholders rated the importance of an age-specific information concerning the risk of diminished ovarian reserve after surgery and the necessity to inform about the benefice/ risk balance of oocyte vitrification, in particular about the chance of live-birth according to the age at the time of oocyte vitrification. They endorsed oocyte vitrification as the reference FP technique for those benign indications. Experts rejected to determine lower and upper age limits in women for fertility preservation. FP shouldn’t be offered in rAFS stages I and II endometriosis without endometriomas. Limitations, reasons for caution Experts were only French native speakers from France, and Belgium. It would have been interesting to conduct this survey with experts from other continents. Wider implications of the findings: At our knowledge, we present here the first guideline s focusing on FP in women with BGD, following a designed scientific Delphi procedure. These guidelines could be useful for gynecologists to better inform women with benign gynecological diseases about the indication or not to offer a FP procedure. Trial registration number Not applicable

Conditioned medium from healthy women's endometrial stem cells improve inflammatory and stemness- expression genes in endometriosis women

Background. Endometriosis is a common, benign gynecological disease which is determined as an overspreading of endometrial tissue in exterior region of the uterine cavity. Evidence suggests that retrograde menstrual blood which contains mesenchymal stem cells with differential gene expression compared to healthy women may play a role in endometriosis creation. We aimed to identify whether the conditioned medium from Menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs) of healthy women can affect the expression level of inflammatory and stemness genes of MenSCs from endometriosis women. Methods and Results. Endometriosis derived MenSCs (E-MenSCs) were treated with conditioned medium (CM) derived from healthy women’s MenSCs (NE-MenSCs). Some CD markers were analyzed by flow cytometer before and after treatment compared with NE-MenSCs, and the expression level of inflammatory and stemness genes was evaluated by real-time PCR. Results. E-MenSCs show different morphology in vitro culture in comparison with NE-MenSCs, which were changed in the presence of CM, into a morphology more similar to normal cells and showed significant decrease expression of CD10 after CM treatment. In our results, the IL-1, COX-2, and HIF-1\(\alpha\) as an inflamaturay genes and OCT-4, NANOG, and SOX2 as a stemness genes showed significantly different expression level in E-MenSCs after treating with CM. Conclusions. Our study indicates that the expression level of some inflammatory- and stemness-related genes which have differential expression in E-MenSCs compared with NE-MenSCs, could be changed to normal status by using CM derived from NE-MenSCs.

Impaired decidualization of human endometrial stromal cells from women with adenomyosis†

Differentiation of endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) into secretory decidualized cells (dESCs) is essential for embryo implantation. Adenomyosis is a common benign gynecological disease that causes infertility. However, whether adenomyosis affects decidualization of human ESCs is elusive. Primary eutopic ESCs were obtained from patients with adenomyosis (n = 9) and women with nonendometrial diseases (n = 12). We determined the capacity of decidualization of human ESCs by qRT-PCR, Edu proliferation assay, cytokine array, and ELISA assay. We found that the expression of decidualization markers (IGFBP1 and PRL) in ESCs of adenomyosis was reduced, concomitant with increased cell proliferation. Differential secretion of cytokines in dESCs, including CXCL1/2/3, IL-6, IL-8, MCP-1, VEGF-A, MIP-3α, OPN, SDF-1α, HGF, and MMP-9, was observed between adenomyosis and nonadenomyosis. Moreover, the expression of decidualization regulators (HOXA10 at both mRNA and protein levels, FOXO1, KLF5, CEBPB, and HAND2 at mRNA levels) in the eutopic endometrium of adenomyosis was lower than that of nonadenomyosis. We propose that ESCs from adenomyosis have defected ability to full decidualization, which may lead to a nonreceptive endometrium.

HYPOXIA AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH: The role of hypoxia in the development and progression of endometriosis

Endometriosis is a benign gynecological disease that affects about 10% of women of reproductive age. Patients with endometriosis suffer from long-term coexistence with dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and even infertility, which severely reduces quality of life. So far, surgical removal and hormonal medication are the major treatment options; however, high recurrence and severe adverse effects hamper the therapeutic efficacy. Hypoxia is an inevitable cellular stress in many diseases that regulates the expression of a significant subset of genes involved in pathophysiological processes. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that hypoxia plays critical role in controlling the disease phenotypes of endometriosis, such as increasing adhesion ability, causing dysregulation of estrogen biosynthesis, aberrant production of proinflammatory cytokines, increasing angiogenic ability, and suppression of immune functions. In this review, we summarize the findings of the most recent studies in exploring the underlying mechanisms of hypoxia involved in endometriosis. Potential therapeutic options for targeting HIF and downstream effectors will also be discussed.