Study on age-ralated variation in ovarian volume and proportion of endometrial thickness abnormalities in women of advanced and post-reproductive age

Abstract

OBJECTIVES : To describe the variations in endometrial thickness and the ovarian volume among peri and postmenopausal women. METHODS : A cross-sectional analysis was done in a study population of a longitudinal study. This was a community-based study and included 888 women randomly selected from the Ragama, Sri Lanka. This was done as part of a larger ongoing study, the “Ragama Health Study”. All study participants underwent a transvaginal pelvic ultrasound scan and the endometrial thickness and the ovarian size were measured. The ovarian volume was calculated using the formula for a prolate ellipsoid (0.523 h x w x l). RESULTS: The mean age of the study population was 59.45 yrs (SD=7.601) and 85.8% (n = 762) of them had undergone menopause. The prevalence of an endometrial thickness (ET) > 10 mm among premenopausal women was 14.98% while 0.9% (n = 1) had an ET>15 mm. Among postmenopausal women an ET >4 mm was seen in 16.01%. This included 1.3% (n = 10) who had an ET >10 mm. The mean of average ovarian volumes of the study population, according to age is shown in the figure. CONCLUSIONS : The study demonsatrated the proportion of asymptomatic women with a thickened endometrium among perimenoausal and poatmenopausal women (>15 mm and >4 mm resepectively) that necessitate evaluation is around 1%. It also described the age related changes in ovarian volume.