Clinical Review

Menopause in HIV-Infected Women


 

References

Many of these characteristics and unhealthy lifestyles are prevalent among HIV-infected women. Prevalence of current smoking among HIV-infected persons is found to be approximately 42% [32] in comparison with the 19% seen in the general population in the United States [33]. Specifically, among women participating in WIHS, 56% of the women were found to be current smokers with an additional 16% of the women found to be prior smokers [34]. In addition, African Americans account for the highest proportion of new HIV infections in the United States with an estimated 64% of all new HIV infections in women found to be in African Americans [35]. Furthermore, HIV-infected women are of lower socioeconomic status, with increased prevalence of substance use than that typically found in women enrolled in studies on the age of menopause [36]. Hence, when examining the influence of HIV on the age of menopause, one needs to have a comparator of non–HIV-infected group with similar characteristics. Studies without comparison groups have reported the median age of menopause in HIV-infected women to be between 47 and 50 years old [37–42].

There are only few studies that have focused on the age of menopause in HIV-infected women with a similar comparative non–HIV-infected group.Cejtin et al studied the age of menopause in women enrolled in the WIHS [43]. HIV-infected women partaking in the WIHS were primarily African American and of lower socioeconomic status with heterosexual transmission rather than injection drug use as the major HIV risk factor [44]. They found no significant difference in the median age of menopause when HIV-infected women were compared to non–HIV-infected women. Median age of menopause was 47.7 years in HIV-infected women and 48.0 years in non–HIV-infected women [43].

In contrast, in the Ms Study, a prospective cohort comparing 302 HIV-infected with 259 non-HIV-infected women, HIV-infected women were 73% more likely to experience early menopause than non-HIV-infected women [45]. Similar to the WIHS, there was a high prevalence of African Americans but unlike the WIHS the majority of participants had used heroin or cocaine within the past 5 years. The high prevalence of drug use and current or former cigarette use in the Ms Study likely contributed to the relatively early onset of menopause. Furthermore, the WIHS and Ms Study used different definition of menopause. The WIHS defined menopause as 6 consecutive months of amenorrhea with an FSH level greater than 25 mIU/mL while the Ms Study defined menopause as the cessation of menstrual period for 12 consecutive months [43,45]. Given the fact that 52% of the women in the Ms Study had high-risk behaviors associated with amenorrhea and that menopause was defined as 12 months of amenorrhea without corresponding FSH levels, it is possible that the Ms Study included many women with amenorrhea who had not yet reached menopause. On the other hand, although the 6 months’ duration of amenorrhea used in the WIHS to define menopause had the potential to include women who only had amenorrhea without menopause, the use of FSH levels to define menopause most likely eliminated women who only had amenorrhea.

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