Assessment of the Cutaneous Hormone Landscapes and Microbiomes in Vulvar Lichen Sclerosus

Abstract

Vulvar lichen sclerosus (VLS) is a progressive skin disease of unknown etiology. In this longitudinal case-control exploratory study, we evaluated the hormonal and microbial landscapes in 18 postmenopausal females (mean [SD] age: 64.4 [8.4] years) with VLS and controls. We reevaluated the patients with VLS after 10–14 weeks of daily topical class I steroid. We found that groin cutaneous estrone was lower in VLS than in controls (−22.33, 95% confidence interval [CI] = −36.96 to −7.70; P = .006); cutaneous progesterone was higher (5.73, 95% CI = 3.74–7.73; P < .0001). Forehead 11-deoxycortisol (−0.24, 95% CI = −0.42 to −0.06; P = .01) and testosterone (−7.22, 95% CI = −12.83 to −1.62; P = .02) were lower in disease. With treatment, cutaneous estrone (−7.88, 95% CI = −44.07 to 28.31; P = .62), progesterone (2.02, 95% CI = −2.08 to 6.11; P = .29), and 11-deoxycortisol (−0.13, 95% CI = −0.32 to 0.05; P = .15) normalized; testosterone remained suppressed (−7.41, 95% CI = −13.38 to −1.43; P = .02). 16S ribosomal RNA V1–V3 and ITS1 amplicon sequencing revealed bacterial and fungal microbiome alterations in disease. Findings suggest that cutaneous sex hormone and bacterial microbiome alterations may be associated with VLS in postmenopausal females.