Problems with the Diagnosis of Endometriosis

Berker B, Bulent Berker, Bülent Berker, Mehmet Murat Seval, Murat Seval
Women's health (London, England) · 2015 · vol. 11(5) , pp. 597–601 · doi:10.2217/whe.15.44 · PMID:26389666 · W2134786249
review OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 50 in-corpus citations
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This review discusses the challenges and limitations of current diagnostic methods for endometriosis, highlighting the absence of a reliable non-surgical diagnostic approach.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is classically defined as the presence of endometrial glands and stroma in outside the uterine cavity. As the definition suggests that confirming the ectopic endometrial stroma and glands in ectopic location histopathologically should be necessary for the diagnosis of endometriosis. Therefore, this situation leads to the need for surgery like laparoscopy for diagnosis. However, this surgical diagnostic approach will not be reliable for all patients with suspected endometriosis. It seems to be an important problem that there is still no reliable clinically diagnostic method or pathognomonic clinical finding, which may allow accurate diagnosis of endometriosis without the need for surgery or histopathologic evaluation. While these clinical features are not pathognomonic for the endometriosis, they should be used as markers for creating high-risk population for endometriosis. Clinical features and the available diagnostic methods, their advantages and limitations for the endometriosis will be discussed in this article. The different options for clinical assessment, laboratory tests and imaging techniques will be summarized and the advantages and disadvantages of these methods will be evaluated. We will also discuss the gold standard definitive diagnostic options with their problematic aspects.

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Condition tags

dysmenorrheadyspareuniaendometriosischronic_pelvic_pain

MeSH descriptors

Dysmenorrhea Dyspareunia Endometriosis Endometriosis Diagnostic Imaging Diagnostic Imaging Dysmenorrhea Dysmenorrhea Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Humans Ovarian Cysts Ovarian Cysts Ovarian Diseases Ovarian Diseases Ovarian Diseases Pelvic Pain

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.

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Cited by (50)

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