Therapeutic Potential of Natural Resources Against Endometriosis: Current Advances and Future Perspectives

Xia Gu,1,2,* Hui Zhou,1,* Mengyue Miao,1 Daifeng Hu,1 Xinyue Wang,3 Jing Zhou,4 Alexander Tobias Teichmann,1 Youzhe Yang,1,5 Chunyan Wang1 1Sichuan Provincial Center for Gynaecology and Breast Diseases, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Leshan People’s Hospital, Leshan, 614003, People’s Republic of China; 3The Basic Medical College, Army Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Endocrinology, Chengdu Third People’s Hospital, Chengdu, 610014, People’s Republic of China; 5Academician (Expert) Workstation of Sichuan Province, Luzhou, 646000, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Youzhe Yang; Chunyan Wang, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, NO. 25 Taiping Street, Jiangyang District, Luzhou, 646000, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Endometriosis (EMS) is defined as the appearance, growth, infiltration, and repeated bleeding of endometrioid tissue (glands and stroma) outside the uterus cavity, which can form nodules and masses. Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory estrogen-dependent disease and occurs in women of reproductive age. This disorder may significantly affect the quality of life of patients. The pathogenic processes involved in the development and maintenance of endometriosis remain unclear. Current treatment options for endometriosis mainly include drug therapy and surgery. Drug therapy mainly ties to the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and hormonal drugs. However, these drugs may produce adverse effects when used for long-term treatment of endometriosis, such as nausea, vomiting gastrointestinal reactions, abnormal liver and kidney function, gastric ulcers, and thrombosis. Although endometriosis lesions can be surgically removed, the disease has a high recurrence rate after surgical resection, with a recurrence rate of 21.5% within 2 years and 40% to 50% within 5 years. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop alternative or additional therapies for the treatment of endometriosis. In this review, we give a systematic summary of therapeutic multiple component prescriptions (including traditional Chinese medicine and so on), bioactive crude extracts of plants/herbs and purified compounds and their newly found mechanisms reported in literature in recent years against endometriosis.Keywords: endometriosis, treatment, multiple component prescriptions, extracts of plants/herbs, purified compounds, mechanisms