Hormonal Analysis of Female Transgender Patients Performed Gender Reassignment Operation

ABSTRACT

Transgender is the severe type of gender identity disorder. The prevalence rate of transgender is reported to occur to about 1 out of 50,000 men, and about 1 out of 10,000 women. As for Korea, it is estimated to have about 1400 transgender patients. Lately, not only the numbers of them are increasing but also they are influencing our society increasingly. As for female transgender patients, they take female hormone for a long term before and even after the operation to maintain their physical identity of female. We have analyzed insulin like growth factor-1(IGF-1), insulin like growth factor protein binding-3(IGFBP-3), female hormone, male hormone and thyroid hormone in female transgender patients who have undergone the gender reassignment operation. We examined the changes of hormone level due to having female hormone steadily, and also examined how the steady use of the hormone could affect body organs. As for IGF-1, it showed significantly low in the female transgender group compared to control (319.30+/-37.4 vs 539+/-55.0, p0.05). As for female hormone, there was no significant differences in FSH(13.42+/-13.8 vs 8.95+/-3.5, p>0.05), estradiol(104.41+/-97.1 vs 121.68+/-60.2, p>0.05), and LH(7.62+/-5.6 vs 7.4+/-3.3, p>0.05). Even in comparison of testosterone, there was no significant differences(0.23+/-0.09 vs 0.33+/-1.33, p>0.05). As for thyroid hormone, there was no significant differences in TSH and free T4(1.34+/-0.94 vs 1.71+/-0.12, 1.4+/-0.37 vs 1.46+/-0.17, p>0.05). Therefore, this study concludes that apart from the decreased level of IGF-1, the possible endocrine side- effect problem due to female hormone seems to be low because there was no differences of female, male, and thyroid hormone level compared with normal female. Further study will be required in metabolic change including bone metabolism occurred by decrease level of IGF-I.