Endometriosis in adolescence: a long-term follow-up fecundability assessment.

Gary Ventolini, Gary M Horowitz, R. K. Long, Ronald Long
Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · 2005 · vol. 3(1) , pp. 14 · doi:10.1186/1477-7827-3-14 · PMID:15845149 · W1961580262
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This study followed 28 women diagnosed with endometriosis in adolescence, finding that higher stages of the disease were significantly associated with lower rates of fecundability over 8.6 years.

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

This long-term follow-up study assessed fecundability in 28 women diagnosed with endometriosis during adolescence, selected from a prospective cohort of 52 adolescents who had operative diagnosis for chronic pelvic pain unresponsive to conservative medical management and were categorized into ASRM stage I–IV based on laparoscopy and review of photographic material. During 8.6 years of follow-up, fecundability rates differed by stage, with the highest in stage I (75%) and progressively lower in stage II (55%) and stage III (25%), while stage IV had 0%, and the differences were statistically significant; spontaneous abortion rates did not differ significantly among stages. A key limitation noted is the small sample size, which constrains interpretation of outcomes like spontaneous abortion. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it evaluates how adolescent endometriosis severity at diagnosis relates to long-term fecundability and pregnancy outcomes.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: A long-term, follow-up study comparing mild and severe forms of endometriosis and their fecundability, on 28 women diagnosed with endometriosis in adolescence. METHODOLOGY: Twenty-eight patients were identified from a prospective cohort of 52 adolescents (ages 12 to 18 years) with operative diagnosis of endometriosis between July 1993 and December 1995. All patients presented with chronic pelvic pain unresponsive to conservative medical management. Diagnosis of pregnancy was made by sonographic identification of intrauterine pregnancy, positive serum human chorionic gonadotropin or pathological confirmation of products of conception. Patients were categorized as fertile or sub-fertile by having > 12 months of unprotected intercourse without conception. Follow-up was done for 8.6 years. RESULTS: Staging of endometriosis was performed according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine standards. Stage I = 14.3%; Stage II = 39.3%; Stage III = 42.8%; Stage IV = 3.6%. Fecundability rates in each stage were statistically significant: Stage I (75%), Stage II (55%), Stage III (25%), Stage IV (0%) (p < .05). Rates of spontaneous abortion were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: In our cohort, even at the earliest point in the natural life cycle of endometriosis there is an inverse relationship between stage of disease at diagnosis and fecundability.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosischronic_pelvic_pain

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Infertility, Female Adolescent Adult Child Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Follow-Up Studies Humans Infertility, Female

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.

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