A new method of quantifying endometriosis using digital photography

This three-centre pilot study used laparoscopy in six adults with suspected or known endometriosis to quantify an “index” peritoneal lesion by taking close-up and wide-angle digital photographs alongside a needle for scale, then computing lesion surface area using specialized computer analysis and mapping the rAFS-defined red, black, and white components. Two gynaecologists independently analyzed randomized image sets, and the authors found good intra-observer reproducibility, while inter-observer variability was poorer, with assessor 1 showing less within-subject variation than assessor 2, likely related to differences in tracing technique. Lesion components varied widely across subjects (including lesions composed only of red tissue in three patients), and the paper cautions that small assessment numbers and interpretation issues with coefficient of variation can affect reproducibility conclusions. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it introduces a digital photography and image-analysis method to more precisely quantify peritoneal endometriotic lesion surface area and its rAFS components.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works