Endocrine Abstracts

“In the Lucanian woods among the oaks ‖ Of green Alburnus’ slopes there swarms a fly ‖ (By us called gad-fly, oestrus by the Greeks). ‖ It's fierce and buzzes monstrously: whole herds ‖ In terror of it scatter through the woods, ‖ Until the sky rings with their bellowing…” Virgil, Georgics, Book III [K.R. Mackenzie's translation].Virgil's description of ...

The intraperitoneal environment of the ovarian surface epithelium (OSE) has an oxygen (O2) tension of 5–12%. This could impact cellular events leading to ovulation. Furthermore, ovarian cancers arising from the OSE (∼80–90% of ovarian malignancies) are likely to experience increased hypoxia due to the relatively poor vascularisation of solid tumours.Using 1%, 5% or 20% O2, we measured the expression of HSD11B1, COX-2...

At least 90% of human ovarian cancers originate in the OSE. Most studies indicate that EOC is oestrogen responsive. Paradoxically, ovarian cancer generally occurs after the menopause, which raises the question if oestrogen is involved, where does it come from? We hypothesise that the high circulating concentrations of conjugated (inactive) oestrogens in post-menopausal women are substrates for formation of active oestrogen in the OSE through the hydrolytic enzyme activity of S...