Summary:

The article I selected was, “The effect of oxytocin vaginal gel on vaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women: a randomized controlled trial” which was published in the BMC Women’s Health journal.The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of oxytocin vaginal gel on vaginal atrophy among postmenopausal women.It was a double- blind randomized controlled trial that was conducted on 96 postmenopausal women who suffered from vaginal atrophy. In order to be included in the trial women had to have the following criteria:  

1. literate women, age 40–60
   1.  at least 1 year passed from their last menstrual period or the level of FSH > 40 IU, 
2. monogamous women with sexual relationship. 

Women in the intervention group requested to use oxytocin gel (400 IU) and women in the placebo group used placebo vaginal gel for 8 weeks. An applicator contains 4 g and participants requested to filled-up one- quarter of each applicator per night and continue to use for eight consecutive weeks. Maturation Index was used to quantify the the estrogen status of the vaginal epithelium and related genital structures including the vulva, urethra and bladder. Three epithelial cell types, parabasal, intermediate and superficial, are used to evaluate vaginal estrogenization. The improvement of the maturation index was more dominant in the oxytocin group (increased from 7.76 ± 4.68 to 52.48 ± 7.54) in compare to placebo group (increased from 8.58 ± 4.35 to 13.25 ± 5.06). The PH of the vagina decreased significantly in the oxytocin group in comparison to the placebo group after 8 weeks of treatment (p = 0.0001).

Two weeks after the intervention, 20.5 and 4.8% in the oxytocin and placebo groups were free of severe subjective symptoms of vaginal atrophy (p = 0.001). After 8 weeks of intervention, 88.6 and 7.1% of women in the oxytocin and placebo groups did not show the severe symptoms of vaginal atrophy (p = 0.001).The scores of subjective symptoms were decreased significantly in the oxytocin group (from 6.2 ± 2.67 to 0.38 ± 0.96) compared to the placebo group (from 6.54 ± 2.82 to 4.9 ± 2.9) (p = 0.0001). The results of this study showed that 8 weeks of intervention with oxytocin vaginal gel (400 IU) could significantly improve the vaginal maturation index, subjective symptoms of vaginal atrophy and reduce the PH of the vagina.