Deep dyspareunia: causes, treatments, and results

Simone Ferrero, Nicola Ragni, Ragni N, Valentino Remorgida
Current opinion in obstetrics & gynecology · 2008 · doi:10.1097/GCO.0b013e328305b9ca · PMID:18660692
review OA: closed public-domain-us
Full text JSON View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This review explores endometriosis, pelvic congestion syndrome, and interstitial cystitis as causes of deep dyspareunia, detailing treatments including laparoscopic excision, pelvic vein embolization, and intravesical therapy.

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

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-08-22 · read from full text ⓘ

This review critically examines the etiology and management of deep dyspareunia, identifying endometriosis, pelvic congestion syndrome, and interstitial cystitis as primary associated conditions. The authors note that while medical therapies can help, laparoscopic excision of deep endometriotic lesions effectively improves both pain and sexual quality of life, whereas pelvic vein embolization is indicated for congestion-related cases. The paper explicitly states uncertainty regarding whether uterine myomas and adenomyosis contribute to this symptom, highlighting a gap in current understanding. Relevance to endometriosis: listed as one indication for GnRH antagonists, though the paper's main focus is uterine fibroids.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We critically review the causes and treatments of deep dyspareunia. RECENT FINDINGS: Endometriosis, pelvic congestion syndrome, and interstitial cystitis have been associated with deep dyspareunia. Although medical therapies may improve deep dyspareunia in women with endometriosis, laparoscopic excision of deep endometriotic lesions has been demonstrated to improve not only deep dyspareunia but also the quality of sex life. Deep dyspareunia related to the presence of pelvic congestion syndrome should be treated by pelvic vein embolization. Intravesical therapy may be effective in treating deep dyspareunia in women with interstitial cystitis. It remains unclear whether uterine myomas and adenomyosis are causes of deep dyspareunia. SUMMARY: Treatment of deep dyspareunia should be mainly directed to causative factors; however, clinicians should keep in mind that secondary sexual dysfunction can arise from organic pelvic pathology.
Full text 1,061 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · click to expand
Deep dyspareunia: causes, treatments, and results - Simone Ferrero - Nicola Ragni - Valentino Remorgida Purpose of review We critically review the causes and treatments of deep dyspareunia. Recent findings Endometriosis, pelvic congestion syndrome, and interstitial cystitis have been associated with deep dyspareunia. Although medical therapies may improve deep dyspareunia in women with endometriosis, laparoscopic excision of deep endometriotic lesions has been demonstrated to improve not only deep dyspareunia but also the quality of sex life. Deep dyspareunia related to the presence of pelvic congestion syndrome should be treated by pelvic vein embolization. Intravesical therapy may be effective in treating deep dyspareunia in women with interstitial cystitis. It remains unclear whether uterine myomas and adenomyosis are causes of deep dyspareunia. Summary Treatment of deep dyspareunia should be mainly directed to causative factors; however, clinicians should keep in mind that secondary sexual dysfunction can arise from organic pelvic pathology.

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-doi-fallback ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Condition tags

dyspareuniaendometriosischronic_pelvic_painadenomyosisinterstitial_cystitis

MeSH descriptors

Dyspareunia Endometriosis Pelvic Pain Adult Aromatase Inhibitors Aromatase Inhibitors Cystitis, Interstitial Cystitis, Interstitial Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Humans Pain Measurement Pelvic Pain Syndrome

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-09-20T09:27:46.357103+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:14:30.652814+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-09-20T06:29:17.529187+00:00
License: public-domain-us · commercial use OK · attribution required
Courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine