Investigation of endocervical intraepithelial gammadelta T lymphocyte population in healthy premenopausal and postmenopausal women

In this study, it was aimed to investigate whether there is a difference in flow cytometry analyzes of endocervical intraepithelial gamma delta T lymphocyte populations and related biomarkers between two healthy premenopausal and postmenopausal groups.This study was carried out by Akdeniz University Scientific Research Projects Coordination, ıt was supported by the unit with the project number TTU-2022-6058.16 premenopausal and 13 postmenopausal women who applied to Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine, obstetrics and gynecology outpatient clinic, aged 30-65, had normal HPV and smear scan in the last 5 years, had no previous history of cervical precancerous lesions, had no history of malignancy detected in another part of the body. A total of 29 patients were included in the study. After the endocervical cytobrush samples taken from these patients were subjected to immunophenotyping analysis in a flow cytometry device, lymphocyte percentages and phenotypes and related biomarkers were compared.In the endocervical canal cytobrush examination, the percentage of GDT1+ cells in the premenopausal period was found to be higher than the percentage of GDT2+ cells (9.9 vs 3.4%) (p. 0.07), and in the postmenopausal period, the percentage of GDT1+ cells was found to be higher than the percentage of GDT2+ cells (8.9 vs 1.8%) (p. 0.01). GDT+CD107a+ and GDT2+CD107a+ cell percentages decreased significantly during postmenopause (respectively (79.1 vs 59.1) (p. 0.020), (43.4 vs 28.8) (p. 0.020). The percentage of GDT+NKG2D+ cells in postmenopausal patients shows a significant increase (47.5 vs 22.1) compared to premenopausal patients (p. 0.019). The percentage of GDT+HLADR+ cells shows a significant increase (30.3 vs 14.65) in the postmenopausal period compared to the premenopase group (p. 0.023).There are differences in cervical immunity in the period before and after menopause. It is observed that GDT1 cells predominate among GDT cells in the endocervical mucosa and there is a postmenopausal increase in CD107a, NKG2D, HLADR subgroups.