Incidence of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis by demographic, anthropometric, and lifestyle factors

Missmer SA, Stacey A. Missmer, S A Missmer, Hankinson SE, Susan E. Hankinson, Spiegelman D, Donna Spiegelman, Barbieri RL, Robert L. Barbieri, Marshall LM, Lynn M. Marshall, Hunter DJ, David J. Hunter
American Journal of Epidemiology · 2004 · vol. 160(8) , pp. 784–796 · doi:10.1093/aje/kwh275 · PMID:15466501 · W2165574992
Observational OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 469 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study found that endometriosis incidence varied by age, race, body mass index, and alcohol consumption, with some associations modified by infertility status.

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

Abstract

The authors investigated the relations of demographic, anthropometric, and lifestyle factors with endometriosis in the Nurses' Health Study II prospective cohort. During 10 years of follow-up (1989-1999), 1,721 cases of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis were reported among women with no past infertility. The incidence rate was greatest among women aged 25-29 years and lowest among women over 44 years (p(trend) < 0.0001). In multivariate Cox proportional hazards models, African-American women had a lower rate of disease compared with Caucasian women (rate ratio = 0.6, 95% confidence interval: 0.4, 0.9). The authors also observed an inverse relation with body mass index at age 18 years (for body mass index of >30 vs. 19-20.4 kg/m(2): rate ratio = 0.8, 95% confidence interval: 0.6, 1.1; p(trend) = 0.004) and with current alcohol intake (for >10 vs. 0 g/day: rate ratio = 0.7, 95% confidence interval: 0.6, 0.8; p(trend) < 0.0001) but no association with height, waist/hip ratio, or caffeine intake. An inverse relation with current body mass index and current cigarette smoking was observed only when cases were concurrently infertile. The authors conclude that age, race, body mass index, alcohol use, and cigarette smoking are associated with the incidence of endometriosis and that some of these relations may differ by infertility status at the time of laparoscopic diagnosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosisinfertility

MeSH descriptors

Anthropometry Anthropometry Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Laparoscopy Laparoscopy Life Style Life Style Adult Adult Age Distribution Age Distribution Alcohol Drinking Alcohol Drinking Alcohol Drinking Alcohol Drinking Body Constitution

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 (44)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

crossref
last seen: 2026-05-17T01:00:22.153421+00:00
europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-21T06:16:17.486033+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:02:47.667321+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK