Approved Research

Effects of life style, environment and genetic on female pelvic organ prolapse

Lay summary

Female pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a highly common condition with reported prevalence ranging from 30 % to 76 % in women presenting for routine gynecologic care. It may cause substantial morbidity, thereby adversely affecting the woman's quality of life. A woman's lifetime risk of undergoing surgery for treating POP is about 15%. Altogether, this might result in reduced workforce productivity, increased costs and raised financial burden upon health care systems. Thus, identifying risk factors and developing preventive measures for those who exhibit them is of high importance. The risk factors include advancing age, history of hysterectomy or pelvic organ prolapse surgery, and postmenopausal status etc, parity, vaginal delivery, and infant birth weight.. The etiology of POP is yet to be fully understood, but has been described as multi-factorial and genetic defects have been proposed.

The current project aims (1) to explore the effects of life style including nutrition, diet style, physical activities etc. on female pelvic organ prolapse; (2) to explore the effects of environmental pollutions, such as air pollution, occupation metal exposure et al. on female pelvic organ prolapse; (3) to explore the effects of genetics and the interaction environment and genetic on female pelvic organ prolapse.

Further identification of effects of life style, environment and genetic may increase our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease so that protective measures may be taken.