ITWire

Menopause is defined as a woman's last menstrual period (or, the permanent end of her ovarian function and the end of her fertile phase), which is currently confirmed after one year in which menstrual periods do not occur. But, a better way is on the horizon.

Dr. Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani led the study that ran from 1998 to the present. The results of the study will be presented on Monday, June 28, 2010, at a fertility conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), being held in Rome, Italy, between June 27 and 30, 2010.

Tehrani, an associate professor at Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran, states that his team has developed a blood test that predict the end of fertility many years before menopause occurs in women.

The Tehrani team claims that some day the test could help women decide to have children before it is too late for them.

Women generally begin to lose their fertility (their eggs begin to run out), or their ability to have children, about one decade before menopause. Thus, the simple blood test could help women nearing the end of their fertility phase to learn that they have only a few years left to naturally produce children.

Currently used tests and medical scans only give women a few years of notice that they are about to run out of eggs.

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