Endometriosis and cancer: what do we know?

J Nassif, Joseph Nassif, Mattar S, S Mattar, A Abu Musa, Abubakar Musa, Abu Musa A, Assaad A. Eid, A Eid
Minerva ginecologica · 2013 · vol. 65(2) , pp. 167–79 · PMID:23598782 · W202437147
Review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 8 in-corpus citations
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This review compares endometriosis and endometrioma to gynecological cancers, examining mutual causality, risk factors, histological distinctions, and molecular pathways to understand their association.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is the presence of endometriotic tissue outside of the uterus, composed of endometriotic glands and stroma. It affects between 10% to 12% of women in reproductive age. It presents with dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, chronic pelvic pain, infertility, urinary or digestive symptoms. Diagnosis is based on clinical suspicion, clinical exam, pelvic ultrasound or pelvic magnetic resonance, and confirmed by laparoscopy with pathology studies. Its management is better understood nowadays. However, its association with neoplasia has been questioned for many years. It probably plays a role in the etiology of gynecological cancers, mainly ovarian neoplasia. In our review, we separately compared endometriosis and endometrioma to cancer, in terms of mutual causality, common risk factors, distinction based on histological findings, in addition to molecular and genetic pathways behind this association. This article reviews the English literature for studies on the association between endometriosis and gynecological cancers. Additional reports were collected by systematically reviewing all references from retrieved papers.

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Condition tags

endometriosisendometriomachronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrheadyspareuniainfertility

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Genital Diseases, Female Genital Neoplasms, Female Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Genital Diseases, Female Genital Diseases, Female Genital Diseases, Female Genital Neoplasms, Female Genital Neoplasms, Female Genital Neoplasms, Female Humans Humans Ovarian Diseases Ovarian Diseases Ovarian Diseases Ovarian Diseases

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

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. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

Cited by (8)

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License: CC0 · commercial use OK