Correlation between sex hormones and non-specificinflammatory factors, immune factor levels in peripheral blood of normal body mass index patients with polycystic ovary syndrome complicated with sterility

  Objective  To investigate the correlation between sex hormones and non-specific inflammatory factors, immune factor levels in peripheral blood of normal body mass index (BMI) patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) complicated with sterility.

  Methods  Seventy-two patients with PCOS who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled as observation group. At the same time, 50 healthy women from healthy physical examinations were selected as control group by stratified sampling. The levels of sex hormonesestradiol (E₂), luteinizing hormone(LH), follicle-stimulating hormone(FSH), testosterone(T), non-specific inflammatory factorsC reactive protein (CRP), interferon-γ(IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α), interleukin-4(IL-4), interleukin-6(IL-6)and Th1 and Th2 cells were determined and the difference of their levels was compared, and the ratio of LH/FSH, Th1/Th2 were calculated. The Pearson correlation coefficient analysis was used to analyze the correlation between sex hormones and non-specific inflammatory factors, Th1/Th2. The correlation between inflammatory factors and levels of FSH, LH, E₂, and T.

  Results  Compared with the control group, the levels of sex hormones such as E₂, LH, T and LH/FSH in the observation group increased significantly (P < 0.05), and the expression levels of inflammatory factors such as CRP, IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-6 as well as percentage immune function index such as Th1 and Th1/Th2 increased (P < 0.05), but there were no significant differences in FSH and IL-4 levels between the two groups (P>0.05). Further Pearson correlation coefficient analysis showed that there was a positive correlation between the expression levels of sex hormones including E₂, LH/FSH, T and CRP, IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-6 and ratio of Th1 to Th2 in the observation group(P < 0.05). However, there was no significant correlation between E₂, LH/FSH and T expression levels and IL-4 level (P>0.05).

  Conclusion  Chronic non-specific inflammatory responses and immunoregulatory imbalances marked by increased Th1/Th2 ratio may be presented in normal BMI patients with PCOS, which may be closely related to sexual hormonal dysfunction in patients.