Introduction:

The vasomotor syndrome is the most frequent clinical manifestation of the menopausal transition and it is often associated with changes in the endothelial function.

Objective:

Determine the relation among the intensity of the vasomotor syndrome and the endothelial function in apparently healthy middle age women.

Methods:

Descriptive cross-sectional study in 113 women of 40-59 years without cardiovascular risk factors. There were excluded women with surgical menopause, and use of replacement hormonal therapy six months before. It was assessed the endothelial function through the dilation test and the flow of the brachial artery, and the intensity of the vasomotor syndrome through the scale of Pérez. The women were organized in two groups: one group of women with endothelial dysfunction and the other of women with normal endothelial function. It was used the Kruskal-Wallis test to identify the association among variables and the chi-Square test to assess the statistical significance considering important the values of p < 0.05.

Results:

63% of the women presented vasomotor syndrome, 29 of them of slight intensity, 31 moderate and 33 women had a very uncomfortable one. Of the total, 51 women presented endothelial dysfunction representing a 38.3% and showing an average of dilation dependant of endothelium of 1.81±1.57 cm. There was not found significant association among the intensity of the vasomotor syndrome and the endothelial function p = 0.139.

Conclusions:

The intensity of the vasomotor syndrome was not related with the endothelial dysfunction in middle age women. It is needed to expand the sample and to implement prospective studies in order to identify the vascular damage in that group of women.

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