atherogenic changes in lowdensity lipoprotein particle profiles were not observed in nonobese women with polycystic ovary syndrome study question is a preponderance of small dense lowdensity lipoproteincholesterol ldlc observed in nonobese women with polycystic ovary syndrome pcossummary answer nonobese korean women with pcos have no quantitative or qualitative changes in ldlc profileswhat is known already small dense ldl particles sdldl are more atherogenic than large buoyant ones and are strongly associated with coronary artery disease independent of other risk factors many investigators have found an increased proportion of atherogenic sdldl or a decreased mean ldl particle size in women with pcos but all of these studies have been based primarily on obese or overweight women with pcosstudy design size duration this was a casecontrol study evaluating complete lipid and lipoprotein profiles in 64 pcos patients and 64 age and bmimatched controls all women with pcos in our study population were not obese to determine the differences in the ldl particle profiles between pcos phenotypes the patients with pcos were divided into two subgroups according to the presence of clinical or biochemical hyperandrogenismparticipantsmaterials setting methods using the rotterdam criteria we recruited 64 women 1840 years with pcos who were attending a tertiary university hospital a total of 64 premenopausal control women were matched with patients based on exact age and bmi 10 kgm2 all the participants fell within the nonobese range of the bmi 55 were categorized as nona phenotype sdldls the system also determined the mean ldl particle size diametermain results and the role of chance there were no differences in the absolute level of ldlc mean ldl diameter or percentage of atherogenic sdldls between pcos patients and controls or between hyperandrogenic and nonhyperandrogenic pcos subgroups also none of the subjects showed a nona ldl phenotype the most notable finding of our study was the difference in the lipoprotein a levels and prevalence of its elevation in pcos patients versus controls p 0002 and p 0004 respectively and between pcos subgroups p 0030 and p 0047 respectivelylimitations reasons for caution inclusion of only nonobese subjects small sample size and lack of information on other potential confounding factors such as differences in diet andor exercise patternswider implications of the findings although our findings suggest that nonobese women with pcos have no significant quantitative or qualitative changes in ldlc profile data on obese korean women with pcos could offer complementary findings about the possible relationship between the magnitude of obesity and ldl phenotype further investigations are needed to determine whether a change in lipoprotein a in nonobese women with pcos is also found in