Symptomatology and Serum Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Metabolomics; Do They Predict Endometriosis in Fertile Women Undergoing Laparoscopic Sterilisation? A Prospective Cross-sectional Study

Nicola Tempest, C J Hill, Christopher J. Hill, Anna Whelan, A Whelan, A De Silva, Andrew Drakeley, A J Drakeley, Marie M. Phelan, M M Phelan, D K Hapangama, Dharani K. Hapangama
Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2021 · vol. 28(12) , pp. 3480–3490 · doi:10.1007/s43032-021-00725-w · PMID:34524640 · W3200629966
article OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 6 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This study found that while some symptoms like heavy or prolonged periods may be more frequent in women with endometriosis, serum metabolomics and general symptomology did not reliably predict the condition in women undergoing laparoscopic sterilization.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 ⓘ

This prospective cross-sectional study recruited 102 fertile women undergoing laparoscopic sterilisation at a tertiary referral centre, assessing endometriosis-related symptomology via pre-operative questionnaires and performing serum nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics on blood collected immediately before surgery. Twelve women were incidentally diagnosed with endometriosis (11.7%), and while many classically attributed symptoms occurred at similar frequencies in women with versus without endometriosis, endometriosis was associated with higher reported rates of apparently persistent heavy periods, prolonged periods, and problems conceiving. Serum NMR metabolomic profiling did not identify distinguishable differences in the serum metabolome between groups. This paper does not explicitly discuss limitations in the provided text beyond emphasizing the difficulty of identifying clear symptoms or biomarkers for endometriosis in the general population, but it highlights that symptom and metabolomic signatures were not reliably predictive in this low-risk cohort. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it evaluates whether symptom questionnaires and serum NMR metabolomics can predict incidentally diagnosed endometriosis in women undergoing laparoscopic sterilisation.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is a common, chronic inflammatory condition, thought to have a higher incidence in symptomatic women, yet, commonly associated symptoms do not always correlate with the presence or severity of disease and diagnosis requires surgery. We prospectively collected data and assessed symptomology and NMR spectroscopy-based metabolomics of 102 women undergoing laparoscopic sterilisation at a tertiary referral centre in a cross-sectional study. Twelve women were incidentally diagnosed with endometriosis (11.7%). According to the pre-operative questionnaire, presence and absence of many symptoms usually attributed to endometriosis were declared at similar frequencies in women with or without endometriosis. Women with endometriosis reported apparently more persistent heavy periods (50% vs 18.9%), prolonged periods (25% versus 7.8%) and problems conceiving (27.3% versus 9%) than those without endometriosis. NMR could not discern any distinguishable differences in the serum metabolome between those with and without endometriosis. Our paper highlights the complex symptomology experienced by women, regardless of a surgical diagnosis of endometriosis. Previous literature and the current study failed to identify clear, distinguishable symptoms or biomarkers pertinent to surgically confirmed endometriosis in the general population. Therefore, development of effective, non-invasive tests for identifying this heterogenous benign condition, endometriosis, is likely to be challenging.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715mesh:D017699endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Laparoscopy Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Metabolomics Sterilization, Reproductive Adult Biomarkers Biomarkers Cohort Studies Cross-Sectional Studies Endometriosis Female Humans Laparoscopy Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Metabolomics Middle Aged Pelvic Pain Pelvic Pain

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SciLite annotations

chemicals 58
copper mini pill mirena Implanon Creatinine Acetate Creatine Acetoacetate phenylalanine lysine 2-hydroxyisovalerate Imidazole 3-hydroxybutyrate leucine valine Citrate Isopropanol arginine Glucarate Glycylproline histidine glucose 2-hydroxyvalerate alanine Choline Proline Desaminotyrosine tyrosine glutamine threonine isoleucine Propylene-glycol myo-Inositol Mannose Lactate glutamate Lipid 2-hydroxybutyrate estrogen diphenylphosphine oxide sodium azide water formate metabolite lactate 3-hydroxybutyrate palmitoyl amino acid phosphatidylcholine glucose palmitoyl amino acid alanine leucine lysine proline phenylalanine alanine glucose
organisms 5
humans noordeloos 2009062 noordeloos 2009062 noordeloos 2009062 noordeloos 2009062

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