Hormonal treatment for endometriosis associated pelvic pain.

Wu Shun Felix Wong, Chi Eung Danforn Lim
Iranian journal of reproductive medicine · 2011 · vol. 9(3) , pp. 163–70 · PMID:26396559 · PMC4575749 · W2279619884
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 4 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This meta-analysis found oral contraceptive pills, GnRH agonists, and progestogens to be equally effective for endometriosis pain, with oral contraceptives and progestogens better suited for long-term use.

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

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Endometriosis is a common gynecological problem associated with chronic pelvic pain. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of current hormonal treatments of endometriosis associated pain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Randomized Controlled studies identified from databases of Medline and Cochrane Systemic Review groups were pooled. 7 RCTs were recruited for evaluation in this review. Data from these studies were pooled and meta-analysis was performed in three comparison groups: 1) Progestogen versus GnRHa; 2) Implanon versus Progestogen (injection); 3) Combined oral contraceptive pills versus placebo and progestogen. Response to treatment was measured as a reduction in pain score. Pain improvement was defined as improvement ≥1 at the end of treatment. RESULTS: There was no significant difference between treatment groups of progestogen and GnRHa (RR: 0.036; CI:-0.030-0.102) for relieving endometriosis associated pelvic pain. Long acting progestogen (Implanon) and Mirena are not inferior to GnRHa and depot medroxy progesterone acetate (DMPA) (RR: 0.006; CI:-0.142-0.162). Combined oral contraceptive pills demonstrated effective treatment of relieving endometriosis associated pelvic pain when compared with placebo groups (RR:0.321CI-0.066-0.707). Progestogen was more effective than combined oral contraceptive pills in controlling dysmenorrhea (RR:-0.160; CI:-0.386-0.066), however, progestogen is associated with more side effects like spotting and bloating than the combined contraceptive pills. CONCLUSION: Combined oral contraceptive pills (COCP), GnRHa and progestogens are equally effective in relieving endometriosis associated pelvic pain. COCP and progestogens are relatively cheap and more suitable for long-term use as compared to GnRHa. Long-term RCT of medicated contraceptive devices like Mirena and Implanon are required to evaluate their long-term effects on relieving the endometriosis associated pelvic pain.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrhea

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 (13)

Cited by (4)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-11T06:19:48.454388+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:16:35.898691+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK