Influencia de las alteraciones del ciclo menstrual en el trabajo / Influence of changes in the menstrual cycle in work

La elevada prevalencia de la sintomatología propia de los cambios hormonales fisiológicos que se producen durante el ciclo menstrual ocasiona, con frecuencia, cierta discriminación de la población femenina en el mundo laboral. En este artículo se recoge un estudio realizado sobre 417 trabajadoras en las que se ha evaluado el impacto de estos cambios sobre el absentismo laboral y su relación con el tipo de actividad laboral, obteniéndose valores muy discretos, que en absoluto fundamentan esta actitud

The high prevalence of symptoms attributable to the physiological hormonal changes occurring in the course of the menstrual cycle rather often causes a certain degree of discrimination against the female population in the labour environment. We report the results of a study performed on 417 female workers in which the impact of those changes on occupational absenteeism and their relationship to the type of occupational activity were addressed. The results were discrete and do not at all warrant the said discriminative attitude

Mechanism of suppression of the depressed lymphocyte response in lung cancer patients.

We studied the function of monocyte-mediated suppression in the proliferative responses of depressed T-cells of patients with advanced lung cancer, with both local (Stage III) and extrapulmonary metastasis (Stage IV). The mononuclear cells of 13 non-treated patients showed a significant drop in proliferation upon stimulation with suboptimum, optimum and supraoptimum doses with regards to normal controls (p less than 0.001). On treating T-cells with indomethacin, lymphoblastic transformation increased in both groups (patients and controls), but was significantly greater in the patient group (p less than 0.001). The lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exerted an inhibitory effect on the suppressor cells of normal individuals, yet failed to do so in the case of patients treated either with or without indomethacin. The stimulation of the patients mononuclear cells with PWM failed to increase proliferation, and was not affected by either indomethacin of LPS. Our conclusions are as follows: Patients with lung cancer present a drop in mononuclear cell proliferation when stimulated with PHA; This phenomenon may be due to an exacerbation of the immune systems suppressor function; One of the suppressor mechanisms is prostaglandin-dependent and mediated by monocytes; The B-cells have no relevant functions.