Changes in Neighbouring Microbiota in Genitourinary Syndrome
Status:
COMPLETED
Trial end date:
2024-07-10
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Genitourinary syndrome (GUS) is a disease seen in menopause, which significantly reduces the quality of life of patients. Microbiota studies in GUS are mostly related to vaginal microbiota. However, although urinary problems are also common in GUS, there are less studies on urobiome and no studies on periurethral microbiota. It is recently shown that especially in patients with dyspareunia vaginal microbiota mostly consists of Streptococcus species. As periurethral tissues are close to the skin it is reasonable to think that periurethra and vaginal opening may be colonised by aerobic bacteria which causes the symptoms like burning sensation and dyspareunia. The hypothesis of the study is that vaginal dysbiosis and related aerobic bacteria that become dominant in the periurethral microbiota may be responsible for the emergence of symptoms in menopausal patients with genitourinary syndrome. Changes in the vaginal microbiota with vaginal estrogen therapy will lead to changes in the urobiome and periurethral microbiota. Our aim is to determine the vaginal, periurethral and urinary microbiota content of menopausal women with genitourinary syndrome, to determine the effect of local estrogen therapy on them, and to examine whether there is a difference between these 3 microbiota.