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ORIGINAL RESEARCH |
From the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, New York University Medical Center, New York, New York; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Algemene Kliniek St. - Jan, Brussels, Belgium; and Lilly Research Laboratories, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Address reprint requests to: Steven R. Goldstein, MD, New York University Medical Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 530 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016; E-mail: steven.goldstein{at}med.nyu.edu
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ABSTRACT |
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 ABSTRACT MATERIALS AND METHODSRESULTSDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
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METHODS: This analysis used safety data through 3 years of treatment from three double-masked, placebo-controlled, randomized trials of raloxifene, which included 6926 postmenopausal women with uteri at entry. Studies 1 and 2 enrolled 969 nonosteoporotic, postmenopausal women who were assigned to 30, 60, or 150 mg per day raloxifene or placebo. Study 3 enrolled 5957 osteoporotic, postmenopausal women randomized to raloxifene 60 or 120 mg per day or placebo. Indications for any reported pelvic operations were identified, including procedures performed for pelvic organ prolapse or urinary incontinence.
RESULTS: A total of 34 (1.51%) women in the placebo group and 35 (0.75%) raloxifene-treated women underwent surgical procedures for pelvic floor relaxation. The odds ratio (and 95% confidence interval) for pelvic floor repair in women assigned to raloxifene was 0.50 (0.31, 0.81). Thus, raloxifene therapy was associated with a significantly reduced risk for pelvic floor surgery (P < .005).
CONCLUSION: Raloxifene does not increase pelvic floor relaxation. An apparent protective effect on pelvic floor function warrants further investigation.
Pelvic floor relaxation is a common condition among postmenopausal women and a major indication for gynecologic surgery. The lifetime risk of undergoing a single operation for pelvic organ prolapse or urinary incontinence by 80 years of age was approximately 11% in one North American study.1 For women who were 50–59 years and 60–69 years of age, the annual procedure rate for surgically managed prolapse and incontinence was 3.30 and 5.24 per 1000 woman-years, respectively.1 Although surgically managed pelvic floor relaxation represents only a subset of symptomatic patients, the costs associated with the procedure, as well as trauma to the patient, suggests that this is a substantial medical concern for older women.
The pathogenesis and etiology of pelvic floor relaxation is not well understood. However, a number of factors have been associated with this condition, including age, parity, smoking, obesity, and chronic respiratory disease.2 Damage to the connective tissues and neuromuscular support of the pelvic floor is thought to result from trauma at childbirth and increased intra-abdominal pressure resulting from obesity and chronic cough.3,4 Connective tissues may also be weakened during the aging process as a result of decreases in collagen content.5 Lumbar spine lordosis was recently reported as a potential risk factor for pelvic floor relaxation, but this requires confirmation.6
The role of hormonal status in the development of pelvic floor relaxation is also not clear. Low estrogen levels generally associated with the postmenopausal state have been considered to be a causal factor for atrophy of the pelvic floor and the subsequent increased incidence of pelvic floor relaxation in older women.7 Estrogen replacement therapy has been traditionally considered to have positive effects on pelvic floor relaxation, although no randomized controlled trials have validated this perception.8 Understanding the exact role of hormonal status in the pathophysiology of pelvic floor relaxation is further complicated by recent findings of increased pelvic organ prolapse with two selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), levormeloxifene and idoxifene, which were previously in clinical development for the treatment and prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis.9
Raloxifene is a benzothiophene SERM approved in the United States and Europe for the treatment and prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis. Large-scale randomized placebo-controlled trials have demonstrated that raloxifene preserves bone mineral density, reduces the risk for fractures and for invasive breast cancer, and improves cardiovascular risk factors in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis.10–14 Several clinical trials have demonstrated a neutral or antiestrogenic effect of raloxifene on the endometrium and uterus.12,15–17 Overall, the effects of raloxifene on the vagina have been neutral; relative to placebo, raloxifene does not increase the incidence of events related to vaginal atrophy.18
Because of reports of pelvic floor relaxation and uterine prolapse associated with two other SERMs, we investigated whether raloxifene had a similar effect on the genitourinary system of postmenopausal women, specifically pelvic floor relaxation. We analyzed pooled data from three randomized, placebo-controlled osteoporosis prevention and treatment trials published previously10,11,19 and report here the effects of up to 3 years of raloxifene therapy on the frequency of surgery for pelvic floor relaxation.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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). Studies 1 and 2 were identical osteoporosis prevention trials of younger postmenopausal women enrolled at 20 sites in Western Europe and in North America.10,19 Study 3 was an osteoporosis treatment trial of older postmenopausal women enrolled at 180 sites in 25 countries.11 Women were excluded from the studies if during the previous 6 months they had taken systemic estrogen, progestins, androgens, or systemic corticosteroids. Women with unexplained vaginal bleeding at initial evaluation were also excluded. Prior hysterectomy was allowed in all three studies.
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Because endometrial safety was a secondary endpoint in these studies, routine transvaginal ultrasonography was scheduled for all women enrolled in osteoporosis prevention trials and for 2155 women enrolled at designated centers in the osteoporosis treatment trial. In addition, some centers in the osteoporosis treatment trial elected to perform transvaginal ultrasonography in a subset of their participants. Investigators were required to report adverse events, including all surgical procedures, to the study sponsor. Surgical events were retrieved from the clinical trial safety database, and indications for any reported pelvic surgeries were reviewed by sponsor personnel blinded to treatment group. Procedures performed for pelvic organ prolapse or urinary incontinence, including hysterectomy, Burch retropubic bladder neck suspension, Marshall-Marchetti, and colpocystorrhaphy, were included in this analysis. Patients with a prior history of hysterectomy were excluded to avoid the potential confounding effect that prior surgery may have on pelvic floor support. The safety data included in this report were obtained from a total of 6926 postmenopausal women with uteri at baseline, 969 from the prevention studies, and 5957 from the treatment study, followed for up to 3 years.
Statistical analyses were performed in an intention-to-treat analysis using Statistical Analysis Software Version 6.08 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Statistical significance was defined as P 
.05 (two-tailed test). Continuous baseline characteristics were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance with therapy and protocol as fixed effect in the model and discrete parameters using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel technique, stratified by protocol. The incidence of surgery for pelvic floor relaxation in the raloxifene group was compared with the incidence in the placebo group. We also compared the incidence of pelvic floor surgery in the treated and untreated groups stratified for age. The interaction of age (at least 60 versus under 60 years) and therapy was tested by using a two-way analysis of variance with age, therapy, and age-by-therapy interaction as fixed effects. Adjusted odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using logistic regression. Cumulative incidence of pelvic floor surgery was plotted by treatment assignment, and the statistical significance of the difference was assessed by the log rank test.
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RESULTS |
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. There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between the placebo group and the raloxifene group after adjusting for protocol. The incidence of urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse at baseline was similar between the groups.
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). After adjusting for protocol, the OR for pelvic floor surgery in the raloxifene group, as compared with placebo, was 0.50 (95% CI 0.31, 0.81). Raloxifene therapy was associated with 50% reduction in the risk of pelvic floor surgery (P < .005). A trend towards a reduced incidence of surgery associated with raloxifene treatment was observed within 9 months of treatment and was sustained throughout the 3-year treatment period (P = .003) (Figure 2). The percentage of women who reported urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse at the time of enrollment was similar between the placebo (50%) and raloxifene (65.7%) groups (P = .176).
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The incidence rate of pelvic floor surgery in our studies was 4.2 per 1000 person-years overall, 3.1 per 1000 for women less than 60 years of age, and 4.6 per 1000 for women up to 60 years of age. The total raloxifene exposure was 11,080 person-years, as compared with 5421 person-years for placebo. The overall incidence rate for women on raloxifene was 3.2 per 1000 person-years, as compared with 6.3 per 1000 for placebo.
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DISCUSSION |
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The current analysis, based on data from 6926 postmenopausal women, demonstrates that raloxifene was associated with a 50% reduction in the risk of surgery for pelvic floor relaxation in women treated for up to 3 years. Similar to results from epidemiologic studies, our data demonstrate a surgery incidence rate of 4.2 per 1000 person-years,1 suggesting that the observations made in this study may be applicable to a broader population of women. Our data also demonstrate an overall increased incidence of pelvic floor surgery with age (0.64% in women under 60 years and 1.15% in women at least 60 years), similar to findings in previous studies.1 A trend towards a reduced rate of surgical repair associated with raloxifene therapy was observed in younger postmenopausal women, but this effect was not statistically significant. In the older postmenopausal population, raloxifene therapy was associated with a 50% reduction in the risk of pelvic floor surgery. A trend towards a decreased incidence of pelvic floor repair associated with raloxifene use was observed within approximately 9 months of therapy initiation; no differences between placebo and raloxifene were observed in the first 9 months of therapy. The results of this analysis indicate that raloxifene does not contribute to pelvic floor relaxation. The data raise the interesting hypothesis that raloxifene may actually contribute to a reduction in the incidence of pelvic floor relaxation, which could be a reflection of estrogen agonist activities on tissues of the pelvic floor.
Several methodologic shortcomings in this study must be recognized. The clinical trials described herein were not designed to assess the effect of raloxifene in the pelvic floor; pelvic floor examinations were not mandated at any time during the study, and there was no systematic evaluation for pelvic organ relaxation.23 An additional weakness of this analysis is the lack of baseline data around the obstetric history of patients. However, the large number of women who were included in this analysis, the highly significant reduction in pelvic floor surgery associated with raloxifene therapy, and the lack of therapy difference in the first 9 months of treatment suggest that the current findings are not spurious.
The findings of this study on the effect of raloxifene on the genitourinary system contrast with the effects recognized for two other SERMs, idoxifene, and levormeloxifene. Idoxifene, a triphenylethylene SERM related to tamoxifen, was associated with an increased incidence of pelvic organ prolapse within 1 year of therapy initiation in postmenopausal women participating in clinical trials of osteoporosis.9 An increased incidence of pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence was also observed for levormeloxifene, a centchroman SERM, within 1 year of therapy initiation.9 Because genitourinary adverse affects would not be tolerable to a relatively healthy postmenopausal population, clinical development of both idoxifene and levormeloxifene for osteoporosis indications was discontinued. In contrast, neither tamoxifen nor toremifene, two clinically available SERMs, have been associated with pelvic floor relaxation.24,25
The mechanism by which raloxifene might affect pelvic floor relaxation is not clear. The presence of estrogen receptors in connective tissues and muscles of the pelvic floor indicates that this region is a target for estrogen and may be responsive to selective estrogen receptor modulators.26 Turnover and remodeling of the pelvic connective tissue is an ongoing process that probably changes with aging and menopause. For example, changes in one marker of tissue remodeling, namely collagen metabolism, have been observed in bone27 and skin5 in association with aging and menopause. In addition, abnormal collagen metabolism has been observed in the vaginal tissues of women with genitourinary prolapse.28 Thus, agents that positively affect tissue remodeling may restore pelvic tone and reduce the incidence of pelvic floor relaxation. Although no data yet supports a remodeling effect of raloxifene in pelvic floor tissues, it is well known that raloxifene decreases collagen turnover in the skeleton,10,29 an affect that may contribute in part to the 30–50% reduction in risk for vertebral fracture in postmenopausal osteoporotic women on raloxifene therapy.11
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Footnotes |
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Supported financially by Eli Lilly and Co., which markets raloxifene. Authors Zhou, Taylor, Ciaccia, and Plouffe are employees of Eli Lilly and Co. and own stock in the company. Author Goldstein has received research support and consulting fees, and author Neven has received consulting fees, from the company.
Received October 23, 2000. Received in revised form February 5, 2001. Accepted March 8, 2001.
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REFERENCES |
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2. Bump RC, Norton PA. Epidemiology and natural history of pelvic floor dysfunction. Obstet Gynecol Clin North Am 1998;25:723–46.[Medline]
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