[The historical aspects of development of concept of endometriosis: publications review]

The endometriosis is a chronic gynecological disease, etiology and pathogenesis of which are not fully clear to science. Its consequences are hardest burden for health care, society and every female patient and her family. The presented review tries to answer in historical aspect the question of interest to all scientists - why endometriosis, known to science for more than 300 years, still remains "disease of riddles and assumptions"? The search of publications was implemented in such databases as Web of Science, eLibrary, Scopus, PubMed/MEDLINE. The search was based on keywords "history", "endometriosis", "review", "myths", "authorship", "infertility", "reproductive dysfunction". The study covered full-text sources and publications reviews related to subject under study. The articles having no direct relation to the topic of endometriosis were excluded from the review. The review demonstrated that as before pathogenesis of endometriosis remains enigmatic and complex. The more and more evidences appear that endometriosis is part of syndrome of uterus reproductive dysfunction. Hence necessity in further research and experimental designs in this area. Perhaps in nearest future scientists nevertheless will find the clue to single etiopathogenetic mechanism of development of endometriosis which at a later date will be successfully applied by physicians in diagnostic and treatment of this disease.