Analysis of the causes of unsuccessful hormonal treatment of non-atypical endometrial hyperplasia in premenopousal women

Annotation. Non-atypical endometrial hyperplasia (NEH), despite of benign morphology, may be insensitive to the hormonal treatment and has a tendency to recurrence and progression to atypia in some cases. The study purpose was the investigation of different type of progestins treatment results and comparison of progesterone receptors (PGR) and Е-cadherin expression in the sensitive NEH(+) and resistant NEH(–) to progestin treatment type of NEH. Prospective study of three groups of women with histologically confirmed NEH, who took different progestins during 6 months was done: І group – 96 women, who took micronized progesterone orally 200 mg per day continually, ІІ group – 161 women, who took dydrogesterone 20 mg per day continually, ІІІ group – 54 women, who were inserted LNG-IUD 52 mg. Control histopathological investigations of the endometrial samplings at 3 and 6 months were done. Expression of PGR and Е-cadherin by immunohistochemistry were investigated in the start samples of endometrium for all 63 NEH(–) women, 48 NEH(+) women and 20 control samples of normal proliferative and secretory endometrium. In the result of the study only nonsignificant and unreliable differences between different progestins efficacy were found. It was 75% normal endometrium samples till 6 months for micronized progesterone, 81.4% for dydrogesterone and 83.3% for LNG-IUD. Data analysis of PGR expression in the NEH(–) endometrium has shown significantly less week expression as for glandular cells (50.82±0.73), as for stromal cells (47.34±0.82) in comparison to the NEH(+) endometrial samples (glandular – 183.7±3.1; stroma 166.4±2.3; р<0.05) and normal proliferative (193.2±8.5 і 178.7±6.3 respectively; р<0.05) and secretory (140.2±4,4 і 116.6±3,1 respectively; р<0.05) endometrium. Е-cadherin expression in the glandular endometrial cells NEH(–) mostly was negative (86.4%) and 13.6% cells only demonstrated its week expression. NEH(+) women cells predominantly showed a positive reaction. It was often enough week (49.2%) and moderate (34.4%), but only in the 16.4% samples were negative. Thus, the use of progestogens for the treatment of NEH in women with low expression of PGR and negative expression of E-cadherin in the endometrium is inappropriate. Investigations of PGR та Е-cadherin expression in the endometrium of women with NEH before starting treatment may provide an opportunity to predict negative result in advance and chose alternative therapeutical approach.