Original Article Serum and Peritoneal Fluid Levels of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Women with Endometriosis

Background: Endometriosis is known as one of the most common disease in women of reproductive age. Due to important role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in neo-vascularization for the implantation of endometrial cell, and also presence of differ-ent studies reported VEGF level in the serum and peritoneal fluid (PF) in endometriosis patients, this study was designed to determine the serum and PF levels of VEGF in endo-metriosis patients, and to compare with normal subjects. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, 179 women subjected to laparoscopy for the evaluation of infertility or pelvic pain were allocated into the following two groups: group I: different types of endometriosis patients (n=90) and group II: non-endometriosis patients (n=89). The PF from pelvis and venous blood samples were obtained. The VEGF concentration of the serum and PF were measured using enzyme immunoassay kit and were compared using t test. Results: The level of VEGF in serum was significantly less than that in PF in both groups (p=0.00). However, endometriosis patients had significantly higher level of VEGF in