Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on July 8, 2005
Human Reproduction 2005 20(11):3208-3211; doi:10.1093/humrep/dei179
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A dominant ovarian follicle induces unilateral changes in the origin of the blood supply to the tubal corner of the uterus
1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Bari University Hospital, Bari, Italy and 2 Physiology and Pharmacology, Institute of Medical Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
3 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: 1st Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Bari, Piazza Giulio Cesare, 70124 Bari, Italy. E-mail: cicinelli{at}gynecology1.uniba.it
BACKGROUND: The blood supply to the tubal corner of the uterus may originate from the uterine and ovarian arteries. The border of supply from the arteries has been found to move in young women; the change seemed dependent on ovarian steroid production. The present work investigated whether the border of supply could differ between the two sides of the uterus in the same woman having one dominant follicle (>10 mm). METHODS: Vagina was flushed with saline of room temperature in 15 women with a dominant follicle >10 mm. The temperature was measured in the mid-uterine lumen and in the tubal corner of the uterus at 2, 5 and 7 min after starting cooling. The investigation was repeated 30 min later measuring the temperature in the other tubal corner. RESULTS: The temperature decrease was, as found in previous investigations, more pronounced in the uterine cavity than in the tubal corners. However, a difference was found between the two tubal corners. At all measurement times the decrease was significantly smaller in the tubal corner corresponding to the dominant follicle than in the contralateral side. CONCLUSIONS: In our model, ‘cold’ is transferred from the vaginal venous blood to the uterine artery and the cooling defines the supply area of the uterine artery. Therefore, the results indicate that the area of supply from the ovarian artery in the tubal corner ipsilateral to the dominant follicle is greater than that in the contralateral side. It is possible to speculate that this difference is related to the hormonal production of the dominant follicle.
Key words: ovarian artery/tubal arcade/uterine artery/uterine blood supply/uterine corner supply