The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will sponsor an Evidence-based Methodology Workshop on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). The workshop will be held December 3–5, 2012, and   will consist of an opening session taking place on December 3, 2012, at the Bethesda Marriott Hotel, with additional sessions taking place December 4–5, 2012, at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.

PCOS is a common hormone disorder that affects approximately 5 million reproductive-aged women in the United States. Women with PCOS have difficulty becoming pregnant (i.e., are infertile) due to hormone imbalances that cause or result from altered development of ovarian follicles.

For most of the 20th century, PCOS was a poorly understood condition. In 1990, the NIH held a conference on PCOS to create both a working definition of the disorder and diagnostic criteria. The outcome of this conference, the NIH Criteria, served as a standard for researchers and clinicians for more than a decade. In 2003, a consensus workshop in Rotterdam developed new diagnostic criteria, the Rotterdam Criteria. The 2012 NIH Evidence-based Methodology Workshop on PCOS will seek to clarify these newly developed criteria as well as other topics relating to PCOS, including causes, predictors, consequences, prevention, and treatment.

During the 2½-day workshop, invited experts will discuss the body of evidence and attendees will have opportunities to provide comments during open discussion periods. After weighing the evidence, an unbiased, independent panel will prepare a report that summarizes the workshop and identifies future research priorities.

There is no fee to attend the workshop. Your input is valuable. Please join us!

For more information and to register, please visit the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome homepage.

Can’t attend?

Register here to view the workshop webcast online.

This conference is sponsored by the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Office of Disease Prevention.