Adenomyosis in endometriosis—prevalence and impact on fertility. Evidence from magnetic resonance imaging

Georg Kunz, G Kunz, D Beil, Peter Huppert, P Huppert, M Noe, S Kissler, Stefan Kissler, G Leyendecker
Human Reproduction · 2005 · vol. 20(8) , pp. 2309–2316 · doi:10.1093/humrep/dei021 · PMID:15919780 · W2383824503
article OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 285 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a high prevalence of adenomyosis (up to 90%) in women with endometriosis, suggesting it impairs uterine sperm transport and contributes to infertility.

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

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The hypothesis is tested that there is a strong association between endometriosis and adenomyosis and that adenomyosis plays a role in causing infertility in women with endometriosis. METHODS. Magnetic resonance imaging of the uteri was performed in 160 women with and 67 women without endometriosis. The findings were correlated with the stage of the disease, the age of the women and the sperm count parameters of the respective partners. RESULTS: The posterior junctional zone (PJZ) was significantly thicker in women with endometriosis than in those without the disease (P<0.001). There was a positive correlation of the diameter of the PJZ with the stage of the disease and the age of the patients. The PJZ was thicker in patients with endometriosis with fertile than in patients with subfertile partners. The prevalence of adenomyotic lesions in all 160 women with endometriosis was 79%. In women with endometriosis below an age of 36 years and fertile partners, the prevalence of adenomyosis was 90% (P<0.01) CONCLUSIONS: With a prevalence of up to 90%, uterine adenomyosis is significantly associated with pelvic endometriosis and constitutes an important factor of sterility in endometriosis presumably by impairing uterine sperm transport.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosisadenomyosisinfertility

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Infertility, Female Infertility, Female Magnetic Resonance Imaging Adolescent Adult Endometriosis Endometrium Endometrium Female Fertility Humans Infertility, Female Male Middle Aged Prevalence Sperm Count

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 (44)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-16T06:07:01.518242+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:15:41.664291+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK