Table 4.
Associations between circulating leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and endometriosis stratified by menopausal status at time of blood draw.
| New England Case Control Study (NEC), 1992–2002 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premenopausal | Postmenopausal | ||||||
| Endometriosis | Endometriosis | ||||||
| Leukocyte Telomere Length | Yes | No | Odds Ratio (95%CI)a | Yes | No | Odds Ratio (95%CI)a | p-hetb |
| Tertile | |||||||
| T1 (longest) | 4 (14) | 188 (44) | ref | 6 (24) | 107 (27) | ref | 0.06 |
| T2 | 15 (54) | 132 (31) | 5.20 (1.64–16.52) | 6 (24) | 129 (32) | 0.78 (0.24–2.58) | |
| T3 (shortest) | 9 (25) | 105 (25) | 3.62 (1.06–12.38) | 13 (52) | 163 (41) | 1.71 (0.60–4.84) | |
| p-trendc | 0.02 | 0.30 | |||||
| National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 1999–2002 | |||||||
| Premenopausal | Postmenopausal | ||||||
| Endometriosis | Endometriosis | ||||||
| Leukocyte Telomere Length | Yes | No | Odds Ratio (95%CI)a | Yes | No | Odds Ratio (95%CI)a | p-hetb |
| Tertile | |||||||
| T1 (longest) | 27 (30) | 651 (36) | ref | 12 (23) | 58 (23) | ref | 0.90 |
| T2 | 35 (35) | 626 (32) | 1.24 (0.74–2.07) | 16 (28) | 65 (31) | 1.21 (0.43–3.39) | |
| T3 (shortest) | 34 (35) | 584 (32) | 1.22 (0.80–1.87) | 26 (50) | 107 (46) | 1.53 (0.47–4.97) | |
| p-trendc | 0.32 | 0.46 | |||||
a
Adjusted for age (continuous), smoking status (never, current, former), body mass index (BMI) (continuous), oral contraceptive use (never, ever), parity (nulliparous, parous), age at menarche (< 12 , 12≤ year)
b
Effect modification was assessed with a likelihood ratio test that compared the model with the cross-product term between the exposure variable and stratifying variable with the model with main effects only.
c
p-trend was calculated by modeling the median of each category as continuous term.