Symposium will report progress in defining reproductive aging
A coalition of expert organizations will meet in Washington, DC, on September 20 to give a progress report to the medical and scientific communities on their efforts to define the reproductive stages in a woman?s life from perimenopause to late menopause. The intent of the daylong symposium is to guide research toward eventually predicting the onset of the menopausal transition and menopause in individual women. MORE
A coalition of expert organizations will meet in Washington, DC, on September 20 to give a progress report to the medical and scientific communities on their efforts to define the reproductive stages in a woman’s life from perimenopause to late menopause. The intent of the daylong symposium is to guide research toward eventually predicting the onset of the menopausal transition and menopause in individual women.
The symposium, being put together with support from the National Institutes of Health, builds on the STRAW (STaging Reproductive Aging in Women) initiative, which was established in 2001 to develop the first universal approach to staging reproductive aging in women.
STRAW+10: Addressing the Unfinished Agenda of Staging Reproductive Aging will meet the day before the 2011 annual meeting of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Scientific presentations and panel discussions will emphasize the latest approaches to understanding clinical events and laboratory tests that might clarify when a woman will enter and complete the menopausal transition (www.menopause.org/STRAWplus10agenda.pdf).
Primary objectives of STRAW+10 include:
• Discussing criteria for onset of early menopause in light of new population-based data on reproductive hormones and ovarian markers
• Considering how to apply reproductive staging algorithms to women with higher body mass index and women who smoke
• Providing recommendations for staging of women who have undergone gynecologic surgery, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy and women with polycystic ovarian syndrome and chronic diseases (eg, HIV/AIDS)
• Assessing potential criteria for staging postmenopause
After the symposium, working groups of experts will develop updated recommendations to be published in the official journals of the sponsoring societies (NAMS, the National Institute on Aging, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Office of Research on Women’s Health, the International Menopause Society, and The Endocrine Society).
Highlights of the STRAW + 10 symposium will be presented in a plenary session at the NAMS annual meeting on September 22.
