Are sonographers the future ‘gold standard’ in the diagnosis of endometriosis?

Alison Deslandes, Catrina Panuccio, Jodie Avery, G. Condous, Mathew Leonardi, Steven Knox, Hsaing‐Ting Chen, M. Louise Hull
In: Sonography · 2024 · vol. 11(3) , pp. 278–286 · doi:10.1002/sono.12402 · W4392790423
article OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 1 in-corpus citation
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

Transvaginal ultrasound is emerging as a primary diagnostic tool for endometriosis, shifting the diagnostic paradigm from surgical laparoscopy to imaging specialists like sonographers.

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

Abstract

Abstract Diagnosis of endometriosis has traditionally relied on laparoscopic surgery, which was considered the ‘gold standard’ diagnostic tool. This is not ideal as surgery carries risk, is expensive, is difficult to access, and disrupts patients work or education due to the recovery time needed. As such, imaging has been investigated as a potential method for non‐invasive diagnosis, with transvaginal ultrasound showing high diagnostic accuracy for ovarian endometriomas and deep endometriosis. The advances in imaging capability led to recent international guidelines suggesting laparoscopy is no longer the ‘gold‐standard’ for diagnosis and encouraging clinicians to utilise medical imaging as part of their diagnostic work‐up for endometriosis. Imaging is emerging as not only a tool for planning endometriosis surgery but increasingly as the first approach for initial diagnosis. Given that transvaginal ultrasound is the primary imaging modality for assessment of gynaecological conditions, it is inevitable that sonographers will have a significant future role in endometriosis diagnosis. This moves away from endometriosis diagnosis being the exclusive realm of laparoscopic surgeons and increasingly involves medical imaging specialists. This review article will describe the origins of endometriosis ultrasound and the current capabilities of transvaginal ultrasound in this field. The expectations of sonographers in this evolving space will be explored, as well as recent novel research findings to gain insight into what the future of endometriosis diagnosis with ultrasound may look like.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

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 (65)

Cited by (1)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK