The diagnostic role of cervico-vaginal fluid interleukins-1α in endometriosis: A case-control study.

Farahnaz Mardanian, Zahra Sheikh-Soleimani
Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences · 2014 · vol. 19(12) , pp. 1145–9 · PMID:25709655 · PMC4333522 · W2163460667
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 1 in-corpus citation
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 ⓘ

This case-control study found significantly higher cervico-vaginal fluid IL-1α levels in women with endometriosis compared to controls, suggesting its diagnostic potential.

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

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

This case-control study compared cervico-vaginal fluid interleukin-1α (IL-1α) levels between 25 women with surgically and histopathologically confirmed endometriosis and 25 controls without evidence of endometriosis or other genital disease. Cervico-vaginal fluid was collected during the follicular phase and prior to surgery, and IL-1α was quantified using a commercially available ELISA kit, with receiver-operating curve analysis to evaluate diagnostic discrimination. Women with endometriosis had higher IL-1α levels (210.44 ± 40.11 pg/mL) than controls (54.28 ± 25.73 pg/mL; P < 0.0001), and the authors reported an IL-1α cut-off of 105 pg/mL with 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The study’s main limitation is its small sample size (n=50). This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it assesses cervico-vaginal fluid IL-1α as a diagnostic marker.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Endometriosis is a chronic and progressive gynecological disorder and is manifest by dysmenorrhea and a major cause of infertility and chronic pelvic pain. The study was designed to compare the value of cervico-vaginal fluid of interleukin-1α (IL-1α) in patients with and without endometriosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty women were assessed in this case control study. The case group included 25 patients with endometriosis. The control group included 25 women without any evidence of endometriosis or any other genital disease. Endometriosis was confirmed by laparoscopy and histopathological examination. Cervico-vaginal fluid samples were obtained from patients during the follicular phase and preup surgery to assess the levels of IL-1α in cervico-vaginal fluid. The level of IL-1α was assessed using commercially available Avi Bionhuman Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay kits (FIN-01720, Vantaa, Finland) for IL-1α. Receiver-operator curve analysis was used to estimate the power of IL-1α to distinguish subjects with endometriosis from controls. RESULTS: The cervico-vaginal fluid level of IL-1α in cases was 210.44 ± 40.11 pg/mL and in controls was 54.28 ± 25.73 pg/mL, the differences between two groups was statistically significant (P < 0.0001). The cut-off point for cervico-vaginal fluid IL-1 for endometriosis was 105 pg/mL, with a sensitivity of 100% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 86.2-100), and specificity of 100% (95% CI: 86.2-100). CONCLUSION: Results show a significant increase in the cervico-vaginal fluid levels of IL-1α, in women with endometriosis, that it can be a useful marker in the diagnosis of endometriosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrheainfertility

Citation neighborhood

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. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (32)

Cited by (1)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-13T06:22:48.782012+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:18:04.362919+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK