Visible-Near Infrared Spectroscopic Assessment of Urogenital Tissue in Premenopausal and Postmenopausal Women
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: A clinical study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of using visible and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a potential noninvasive measure of genital skin health in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Methods: A total of 45 female subjects (aged 21-70 years), all of whom gave fully informed consent to participate, were enrolled in the study and assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 15 premenopausal (Pre-M), 15 postmenopausal receiving hormone replacement therapy (Post-M HRT), and 15 postmenopausal receiving no form of hormone replacement therapy (Post-M non-HRT). Spectral measurements were taken at the vaginal mucosa, and spectral data were evaluated for the erythema index (EI), hemoglobin index (HI), bilirubin/β-carotene, and melanin. The color index (CI; calculated as the ratio of absorbance at 480 nm/540 nm) was also determined. Results were compared with previously published results on biomarkers and physical characteristic of genital tissue measured on the same groups of women. Results: Spectral measurements from the Post-M Non-HRT subjects indicated a significant reduction in HI compared with the Pre-M group ( P = .0003) and to the Post-M HRT group ( P < .0001). Similarly, EI was reduced in the Post-M Non-HRT ( P < .0001 and P = .0041 for the Pre-M and Post-M HRT groups, respectively). In contrast, the Post-M Non-HRT subjects exhibited a significant increase in β-carotene compared with the Pre-M subjects ( P = .0098). Bilirubin and melanin were not significantly affected. The Post-M Non-HRT group exhibited a significant increase in CI, indicating a shift away from the hemoglobin absorption region (510-620 nm wavelength) and toward the bilirubin/β-carotene absorption region (450-490 nm wavelength). This change was significant when compared with both the Pre-M group ( P < .0001) and the Post-M HRT group ( P = .0048). The changes in spectral measurements were consistent with previously reported changes in physical parameters (vaginal atrophy, increased pH, decreased skin temperature) and with decreased concentrations of the biomarkers histamine and histidine. Conclusions: Hemodynamic spectral characteristics differ in postmenopausal vaginal tissue compared with tissue in premenopausal women, with decreased absorbance in the hemoglobin absorption region (510-620 nm wavelength) and an increased absorbance in the bilirubin/β-carotene absorption region (450-490 nm wavelength). A change in absorbance in the visible and NIR wavelengths is a promising, additional measure of genital skin health related to menopause and vulvovaginal atrophy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".