Does Endometriosis Increase Susceptibility to COVID–19 Infections? A case-control study in Women of Reproductive Age

Bahram Moazzami, Shahla Chaichian, Saeed Samie, Masoumeh Majidi Zolbin, Fatemeh Jesmi, Meisam Akhlaghdoust, Mahin Ahmadi Pishkuhi, Zahra Sadat Mirshafiei, Fereshteh Khalilzadeh, Dorsa Safari
In: Research Square · 2020 · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-45026/v1 · W4249531563
preprint OA: gold CC0
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This case-control study found that endometriosis does not increase COVID-19 susceptibility in women but does alter disease manifestation, with the case group experiencing more rare symptoms.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This case-control study compared 507 women with histologically confirmed endometriosis to 520 age-matched women without endometriosis recruited from a gynecology clinic between May 21 and July 3, 2020, assessing COVID-19 infection status and related symptoms, exposures, hospitalization/isolation, and histories including H1N1 vaccination and H1N1 infection via self-reported checklist and RT-PCR screening. COVID-19 infection occurred in 3.2% of the endometriosis group versus 3.0% of controls (P=.942), with similar disease duration (14 days) and no differences in several exposure-related factors such as close contact, travel, and isolation practices. However, asymptomatic infection was more frequent in controls (95.7% vs. 94.5%, P<.001), while fever was less common in cases (0% vs. 1.6%, P=.004), and the endometriosis group reported other (rarer) symptoms more often (P<.001). The paper concludes endometriosis does not increase susceptibility to COVID-19 infection but alters symptom manifestation, and it also notes that further studies are required; This paper is centrally about endometriosis — evaluating whether endometriosis increases susceptibility to COVID–19 infection and whether symptoms differ.

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Abstract

Abstract Background: In today’s world, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID–19) is the most critical health problem and research is continued on studying the associated factors. But it is not clear whether endometriosis increases the risk of COVID–19. Methods: Women who referred to the gynecology clinic were evaluated and 507 women with endometriosis (case group) were compared with 520 women without endometriosis (control group). COVID–19 infection, symptoms, exposure, hospitalization, isolation, H1N1 infection and vaccination, and past medical history of the participants were recorded and compared between the groups using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows version 21. Results: Comparison between the groups represent COVID–19 infection in 3.2% of the case group and 3% of the control group (P=.942). The control group had a higher frequency of asymptomatic infection (95.7% vs. 94.5%; P<.001) and fever (1.6% vs. 0%; P=.004), while the frequency of rare symptoms was more common in the case group (P<.001). The average disease period was 14 days in both groups (P=.694). COVID–19 infection was correlated with close contact (r=.331; P<.001 in the case group and r=.244; P.05). Conclusion: Endometriosis does not increase the susceptibility to COVID–19 infections, but alters the manifestation of the disease. The prevalence of the disease may depend on the interaction between the virus and the individual’s immune system but further studies are required in this regard.

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endometriosis

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