DEVELOPMENT OF A SCREENING TEST FOR ENDOMETRIAL HYPERPLASIA IN AN AT RISK COHORT

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Our objective is to identify the utility of ultrasound as a screening test for endometrial hyperplasia and cancer in an "at risk" cohort. We hypothesize that endometrial thickness will be a significant predictor of endometrial hyperplasia in a postmenopausal female population with the metabolic syndrome: diabetes and/or insulin resistance, hypertension, and obesity. Endometrial carcinoma is an understudied cancer that disproportionately affects the women of Pennsylvania. This study will provide benefit regardless of its outcome, because it will be the first prospectively designed screening trial in an asymptomatic population. Assumptions made about the utility of screening or not screening for a disease as common and as morbid as endometrial cancer should not be made in the absence of data. We hope that we will be able to fill the current void in screening for gynecologic related cancers.