Research Article A Promise in the Treatment of Endometriosis:

Copyright © 2013 Maria Grazia Porpora et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Urged by the unmet medical needs in endometriosis treatment, often with undesirable side effects, and encouraged by N-acetylcysteine (NAC) efficacy in an animal model of endometriosis and by the virtual absence of toxicity of this natural compound, we performed an observational cohort study on ovarian endometriosis. NAC treatment or no treatment was offered to 92 consecutive Italian women referred to our university hospital with ultrasound confirmed diagnosis of ovarian endometriosis and scheduled to undergo laparoscopy 3 months later. According to patients acceptance or refusal, NAC-treated and untreated groups finally comprised 73 and 72 endometriomas, respectively. After 3 months, within NAC-treated patients cyst mean diameter was slightly reduced (−1.5mm) versus a significant increase (+6.6 mm) in untreated patients (