Endometriosis in Italy: from cost estimates to new medical treatment

Stefano Luisi, Lucia Lazzeri, Ciani V, Valentina Ciani, Felice Petraglia, Petraglia F
Gynecological endocrinology : the official journal of the International Society of Gynecological Endocrinology · 2009 · vol. 25(11) , pp. 734–740 · doi:10.3109/09513590903159664 · PMID:19908951 · W1976390760
Review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 21 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

In Italy, endometriosis affects ~3 million women, predominantly reproductive-aged, causing significant symptom burden and healthcare costs, with diagnosis delayed and various medical treatments available.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Endometriosis is defined as the presence of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterus, which induced a chronic inflammatory reaction. The data collected from Italy showed that around 3 million women are affected by endoemtriosis and the condition was predominantly found in women of reproductive age (50% of women were in the 29-39 age range), only 25% of women were asymptomatic. The associated symptoms can create an impact in general physical, mental, and social well-being. Endometriosis is associated with severe dysmenorrhea, deep dyspareunia, chronic pelvic pain, ovulation pain, cyclical, or perimenstrual symptoms, with or without abnormal bleeding, infertility, and chronic fatigue. The annual cost for hospital admission can be estimated to be in a total around 54 million euros. The average time for right diagnosis is around 9 years still today and it follows a long and expensive diagnostic search. Therapies can be useful to relieve and sometimes solve the symptoms, encourage fertility, eliminate endometrial lesions, and restore the anatomy of the pelvis. For medical therapy, several different preparations (oral contraceptives, progestogenics, gestrinone, danazol, and GnRHa) and new options (GnRH antagonists, aromatase inhibitors, estrogen receptor beta agoinist, progesterone receptor modulators, angiogenesis inhibitors, and COX-2 selective inhibitors) are available.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrheadyspareuniainfertility

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Health Care Costs Health Care Costs Adult Adult Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Humans Humans Italy Italy Italy Laparoscopy

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

References (42)

Cited by (19)

Source provenance

crossref
last seen: 2026-08-30T06:25:30.346220+00:00
europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-15T06:08:49.021275+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:07:04.513278+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-10-15T06:24:24.424788+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK