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Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS

Hirsutism is defined as the presence of terminal hair with male pattern distribution in women. While in the general population, hirsutism affects around 4–11% of women, it is the main manifestation of hyperandrogenism in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), with a prevalence estimated at 65–...

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Autores principales: Spritzer, Poli Mara, Marchesan, Lucas Bandeira, Santos, Betânia Rodrigues, Fighera, Tayane Muniz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9406611/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36010272
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12081922
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author Spritzer, Poli Mara
Marchesan, Lucas Bandeira
Santos, Betânia Rodrigues
Fighera, Tayane Muniz
author_facet Spritzer, Poli Mara
Marchesan, Lucas Bandeira
Santos, Betânia Rodrigues
Fighera, Tayane Muniz
author_sort Spritzer, Poli Mara
collection PubMed
description Hirsutism is defined as the presence of terminal hair with male pattern distribution in women. While in the general population, hirsutism affects around 4–11% of women, it is the main manifestation of hyperandrogenism in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), with a prevalence estimated at 65–75%. Hirsutism in PCOS is associated with both androgen excess and individual response of the pilosebaceous unit to androgens. The modified Ferriman–Gallwey (mFG) scoring system has been widely used in clinical practice to visually score excessive terminal hair, thus standardizing hirsutism evaluation and facilitating data comparison. Although a universal mFG score cutoff would be useful for comparisons, ethnic variations, as well as skin type and other factors, should be considered when evaluating hirsutism in distinct populations. In turn, androgen levels, measured by conventional techniques, have been shown to correlate poorly with the severity of hirsutism. Indeed, while most women with PCOS and hirsutism also have higher than reference values for serum androgen levels, some of them may not present with biochemical hyperandrogenism, representing a challenge to the diagnosis of PCOS. In this article, we critically review this not uncommon condition in women with PCOS presenting with hirsutism but normal androgen levels.
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spelling pubmed-94066112022-08-26 Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS Spritzer, Poli Mara Marchesan, Lucas Bandeira Santos, Betânia Rodrigues Fighera, Tayane Muniz Diagnostics (Basel) Review Hirsutism is defined as the presence of terminal hair with male pattern distribution in women. While in the general population, hirsutism affects around 4–11% of women, it is the main manifestation of hyperandrogenism in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), with a prevalence estimated at 65–75%. Hirsutism in PCOS is associated with both androgen excess and individual response of the pilosebaceous unit to androgens. The modified Ferriman–Gallwey (mFG) scoring system has been widely used in clinical practice to visually score excessive terminal hair, thus standardizing hirsutism evaluation and facilitating data comparison. Although a universal mFG score cutoff would be useful for comparisons, ethnic variations, as well as skin type and other factors, should be considered when evaluating hirsutism in distinct populations. In turn, androgen levels, measured by conventional techniques, have been shown to correlate poorly with the severity of hirsutism. Indeed, while most women with PCOS and hirsutism also have higher than reference values for serum androgen levels, some of them may not present with biochemical hyperandrogenism, representing a challenge to the diagnosis of PCOS. In this article, we critically review this not uncommon condition in women with PCOS presenting with hirsutism but normal androgen levels. MDPI 2022-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9406611/ /pubmed/36010272 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12081922 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Spritzer, Poli Mara
Marchesan, Lucas Bandeira
Santos, Betânia Rodrigues
Fighera, Tayane Muniz
Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS
title Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS
title_full Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS
title_fullStr Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS
title_full_unstemmed Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS
title_short Hirsutism, Normal Androgens and Diagnosis of PCOS
title_sort hirsutism, normal androgens and diagnosis of pcos
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9406611/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36010272
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12081922
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