Perfluorochemicals and Endometriosis

Germaine M Buck Louis, C Matthew Peterson, Zhen Chen, Mary L Hediger, Mary S Croughan, Rajeshwari Sundaram, Joseph B Stanford, Victor Y Fujimoto, Michael W Varner, Linda C Giudice, Anne Kennedy, Liping Sun, Qian Wu, Kurunthachalam Kannan
Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2012 · vol. 23(6) , pp. 799–805 · doi:10.1097/ede.0b013e31826cc0cf · PMID:22992575 · PMC4122261 · W2017429754
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 24 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

Serum perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorononanoic acid were associated with endometriosis in an operative sample, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid and perfluorooctanoic acid were linked to moderate/severe endometriosis.

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

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Environmental chemicals may be associated with endometriosis. No published research has focused on the possible role of perfluorochemicals (PFCs) despite their widespread presence in human tissues. METHODS: We formulated two samples. The first was an operative sample comprising 495 women aged 18-44 years scheduled for laparoscopy/laparotomy at one of 14 participating clinical sites in the Salt Lake City or San Francisco area, 2007-2009. The second was a population-based sample comprising 131 women matched to the operative sample on age and residence within a 50-mile radius of participating clinics. Interviews and anthropometric assessments were conducted at enrollment, along with blood collection for the analysis of nine PFCs, which were quantified using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Endometriosis was defined based on surgical visualization (in the operative sample) or magnetic resonance imaging (in the population sample). Using logistic regression, we estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for each PFC (log-transformed), adjusting for age and body mass index, and then parity. RESULTS: Serum perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA; OR = 1.89 [95% CI = 1.17-3.06]) and perfluorononanoic acid (2.20 [1.02-4.75]) were associated with endometriosis in the operative sample; findings were moderately attenuated with parity adjustment (1.62 [0.99-2.66] and 1.99 [0.91-4.33], respectively). Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (1.86 [1.05-3.30]) and PFOA (2.58 [1.18-5.64]) increased the odds for moderate/severe endometriosis, although the odds were similarly attenuated with parity adjustment (OR = 1.50 and 1.86, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Select PFCs were associated with an endometriosis diagnosis. These associations await corroboration.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Environmental Exposure Environmental Pollutants Fluorocarbons Adolescent Adult Caprylates Caprylates Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Environmental Exposure Environmental Pollutants Environmental Pollutants Female Fluorocarbons Fluorocarbons Humans San Francisco

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 (36)

Cited by (24)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-12T06:13:51.797165+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:16:04.919516+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-06-02T02:00:03.124865+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK