Altered expression of interleukin-18 in the peritoneal fluid of women with endometriosis

Non-randomised trial OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 39 in-corpus citations
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study investigated the expression of interleukin-18 in peritoneal fluid from women with endometriosis and found it to be altered.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Peritoneal fluid (PF) inflammatory factors may participate in the pathogenesis of endometriosis. The aim of this study was to investigate PF interleukin (IL)-18 levels in women with and without endometriosis. DESIGN: Controlled clinical study. SETTING: Women undergoing laparoscopy at a university hospital. PATIENT(S): Fifty women with previously untreated endometriosis, 8 women on GnRH agonists for endometriosis, and 18 control women with normal pelvic anatomy who were undergoing tubal ligation. INTERVENTION(S): Peritoneal fluid IL-18 levels as measured by ELISA. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Peritoneal fluid IL-18 levels. RESULT(S): Peritoneal fluid IL-18 levels were significantly higher in women with previously untreated endometriosis (mean +/- SEM, 91.1 +/- 6.5 pg/mL) than in control women (59.4 +/- 2.0 pg/mL). Interestingly, women with superficial (100.0 +/- 10.2 pg/mL) and deep peritoneal implants (94.0 +/- 10.8 pg/mL) had significantly higher PF IL-18 levels than did women with endometriomas (57.8 +/- 1.8 pg/mL). Similarly, women with stage I-II endometriosis (97.3 +/- 8.0 pg/mL), but not women with stage III-IV endometriosis (74.9 +/- 9.9 pg/mL), had significantly higher PF IL-18 levels than did control women. Peritoneal fluid IL-18 levels were significantly higher in the luteal phase than in the follicular phase but did not discriminate between women with pelvic pain or infertility. CONCLUSION(S): Peritoneal fluid IL-18 is elevated in women with peritoneal, minimal- to mild-stage endometriosis.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Ascitic Fluid Endometriosis Interleukin-18 Adult Adult Ascitic Fluid Ascitic Fluid Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Female Female Follicular Phase Follicular Phase Follicular Phase Humans Humans Interleukin-18

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 ]

References (58)

Cited by (39)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-19T06:17:24.038039+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:02:06.159351+00:00
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