Hyberbaric oxygen increases atresia in normal & steroid induced PCO rat ovaries

The rats were divided into four groups. Group1, control; group 2, PCO group; group 3, PCO with HBOT group and group 4, normal ovary with HBOT. PCO was induced by a single intramuscular injection of 4 mg EV in adult cycling rats. Other rats with normal ovaries had oil injection as placebo. HBOT was applied to third and fourth groups for six weeks. Histopathologic evaluation of ovaries of all groups were performed & compared.Six weeks of HBOT was resulted in increase in follicular atresia, decrease in the number of primary, secondary, tertiary follicles and decrease in the number of fresh corpus luteum in normal rat ovary. HBOT on polycystic rat ovary, resulted in significant increase in atretic follicles which were already present.HBOT of six weeks itself, changed ovarian morphology in favor of atresia both in PCO group and control group. This result of aggravated follicular atresia after HBOT on EV induced PCO may be due to long-term exposure in our protocol which with this state seems to be inapplicable in the improvement of PCO morphology.Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common endocrinopathy in women of reproductive age is a multifactorial metabolic disease associated with insulin resistance [1]. PCOS is a common condition with a range of clinical features. These reproductive features include anovulation, irregular menstrual cycles, clinical and biochemical hyperandrogenism and infertility. Metabolic features include increased risk factors for type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease and increase in the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome [1,2].Previously, the diagnosis of PCOS was based on the National Institute of Health (NIH) criteria comprising biochemical or clinical hyperandrogenism and anovulatory irregular menstrual cycles with the exclusion of related reproductive disorders. In 2003, diagnostic guidelines for PCOS were expanded to the so-called Rotterdam criteria, now based on presentation with any two of the three criteria of hyper