The Concept of Clinical Endometriosis: A Paradigm Shift in Africa

Bamgboye M Afolabi
In: Pregnancy and Women’s Health Care International Journal · 2022 · vol. 2(1) · doi:10.53902/pwhcij.2022.02.000509 · W4226281103
article OA: gold CC0
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This article discusses how African clinicians can suspect and identify endometriosis based on clinical symptoms like infertility, pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia, especially when diagnostic imaging is unavailable.

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

Abstract

The clinical symptoms of endometriosis, an illness characterized by ectopic endometrium (glands and stroma) outside the uterus, are mainly dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, cyclic urinary symptoms and infertility. Although imaging modalities such as pelvic ultrasound can identify and localize endometriotic deposits in the ovary (endometrioma) and in bladder wall, diagnosis of the disease is impossible where such imaging modalities are unavailable or where clinicians are not trained to clinically diagnose endometriosis during consultation. Especially in sub-Saharan Africa, clinicians should be familiar with certain predisposing risk factors for endometriosis such as early age at menarche, shorter menstrual length and low body mass index. Delay in the diagnosis of endometriosis not only prolongs the duration of suffering, pain and discomfort but also lowers quality of life and increases cost of treatment. This article focuses on how gynecologists and clinicians in sub-Saharan Africa can easily identify the symptomatology of endometriosis. Clinical presentations of endometriosis in Black African women may not be different from presentations among Caucasian women. Though a confusing illness for the patient and for the clinician, at least, African gynecologists, clinicians and general practitioners can have a suspicion of endometriosis when a Black African woman presents with a combination of infertility, pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea and dyspareunia. This article discusses various conditions associated with endometriosis in adolescent women and in women in child-bearing age group.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosisendometriomadysmenorrheadyspareuniainfertility

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 (36)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK