General Obstetrics and Gynecology: GynecologyAltered immune response in adult women exposed to diethylstilbestrol in utero☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Subjects
Thirteen women with a well-documented history of in utero DES exposure (mean age, 39 years; range, 27-43 years) were compared with 13 age-matched control subjects. The DES-exposed women were selected from a group, which had been followed up prospectively from childhood by one of the authors (Louis Burke). All of the DES-exposed women had evidence of anomalies consistent with DES exposure, including cervical “hoods,” vaginal constriction rings, and vaginal adenosis.7, 8 Three were parous and 10
Results
Incorporation of thymidine labeled with tritium into peripheral blood mononuclear cells from both DESexposed women and control subjects exhibited a clear dose-response effect with increasing concentrations of both PHA and CON-A (P <.001). The magnitude of this response was such that the incorporation of thymidine labeled with tritium was 3-fold greater at the highest concentration of PHA (7.5 μg/mL) than at the lowest (1 μg/mL) and was 5-fold greater at the highest dose of CON-A (2.5 μg/mL)
Comment
Our data demonstrate that T cells from women exposed to DES in utero exhibit a marked increase in their response to stimulation from a variety of mitogens. This was true for the experiments using PHA, CON-A, and hrIL-2, all of which demonstrated remarkably consistent results.
The results of this study are particularly interesting in that they initially appear contrary to those that would be predicted by animal and human studies. Perinatal or adult exposure of rodents to estrogen treatment
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge and thank Jane Marchiori, MD, for her help in the laboratory in the analysis of the blood samples.
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Cited by (0)
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Reprint requests: Louis Burke, MD, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215.
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†Deceased.