Perimenopause and the Use of Fertility Tracking: 3 Case Studies

Perimenopause is a time in a woman's life where fertility may vary depending upon her age and her reproductive stage and has been defined as the transition period prior to menopause that is characterized by irregular menses, hormonal changes, vasomotor symptoms, and declining fertility (Casper, 2020). Fertility tracking during this time in a woman's reproductive stage has not been widely studied. Employing the use of Luteinizing Hormone Urine Assay sticks, an electronic hormonal monitor device or mucus, we propose a set of guidelines to determine the potentially fertile times of a woman's cycle based on staging according to the Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop (STRAW) criteria and illustrate their application with three case reports.

Tenofovir Urine Assay to Monitor Adherence to HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis

Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate (TDF) and tenofovir Alafenamide (TAF) are prodrugs of tenofovir and have excellent long-term efficacy and tolerability for the treatment of HIV. An objective marker of adherence to tenofovir-based therapy could be clinically useful in supporting adherence to TDF-based HIV pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in populations in whom, self-report has been shown to be unreliable, and could play a role in resource-limited settings to support HIV and hepatitis B treatment adherence. A semi-quantitative high-performance liquid chromatographymass spectrometry method for tenofovir quantification of urine samples was developed. This assay detects tenofovir concentration in log10 levels between 1 and 10,000 ng/mL, and was shown to distinguish between recent adherence and low/non-adherence to both TDF and TAF, with a concentration of >1000 ng/mL, highly predictive of medication ingestion in the last 24-48 hours. This assay was validated relative to other markers of adherence including dried blood spot and selfreport in a highly adherent population of PrEP patients, and tenofovir was shown to be stable at room temperature in urine for at least 14 days. The assay was successfully used in a clinical setting to maintain high PrEP adherence and retention in care of 50 young men who have sex with men (MSM) over 48 weeks, to assess PrEP adherence in youth with mental health conditions, and to monitor drug levels relative to plasma levels in a case study of chewed TDF/FTC (tenofovir/emtricitabine) for PrEP. Further studies are underway to implement the tenofovir urine assay to monitor adherence and pre-exposure prophylaxis, nationally and internationally.

Melatonin Patterns and Levels During the Human Menstrual Cycle and After Menopause

Context Melatonin may play a role in the regulation of the human menstrual cycle and may decline with menopause and/or aging. Objective The objective of this work is to investigate the relations between melatonin and the menstrual cycle, menopause, and aging. Methods This was a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of 20 participants from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) Daily Hormone Study (DHS). The outcome measure was first-morning urine assay of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s), a gauge of melatonin. For each participant, aMT6s was measured daily during one premenopausal cycle with evidence of luteal activity (ELA) and one postmenopausal collection with no evidence of luteal activity (NELA). Results In addition to the organized patterns of hormone metabolites (estrone conjugates [E1c], and pregnanediol glucuronide [PdG]) and gonadotropins that characterized ovulatory menstrual cycles, there was a late luteal rise in aMT6s. In NELA collections, there was no periodicity of E1c, PdG, gonadotropins, or aMT6s. The strongest predictors of aMT6s levels were PdG values 11 to 12 days prior to aMT6s (β = 1.46, P = .001 and β = 1.44, P = .001, respectively). E1c and gonadotropins were not statistically significantly associated with aMT6s. Mean aMT6s in premenopause was 53.5 ng/mL, greater than the mean of 37.4 ng/mL in postmenopausal samples from the same women (P = .0002). Conclusions This study confirms a late luteal melatonin rise, likely signaled by progesterone, which may influence menstrual cycle pacemaker control. Melatonin declined from premenopause to postmenopause. A high correlation between menopause transition stage and age precludes distinction between the influences of ovarian and chronological aging.