A prospective study of insulin-like growth factor 1, its binding protein 3, and risk of endometriosis

Mu F, Fan Mu, Hankinson SE, Susan E. Hankinson, Eva Schernhammer, Michaël Pollak, Michael N Pollak, Missmer SA, Stacey A. Missmer
American Journal of Epidemiology · 2015 · vol. 182(2) , pp. 148–156 · doi:10.1093/aje/kwv037 · PMID:26121987 · PMC4493981 · W2259764642
Observational OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 14 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This prospective study found no overall association between IGF-1, IGFBP-3, or their ratio and endometriosis risk, though a positive association was observed in younger women.

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

Abstract

Several retrospective case-control studies suggested that insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) or insulin-like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3) was associated with endometriosis. However, results are inconsistent and no prospective study exists. We prospectively evaluated associations between plasma levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 and laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis in a case-control study nested within the Nurses' Health Study II. Between blood collections in 1996-1999 and 2007, we ascertained 310 premenopausal women with incident endometriosis and 615 matched controls. We estimated incidence rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals using multivariable conditional logistic regression. We observed no statistically significant associations between endometriosis and IGF-1 (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 0.88, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.61, 1.27; Ptrend = 0.48), IGFBP-3 (IRR = 1.12, 95% CI: 0.80, 1.57; Ptrend = 0.51), and the IGF-1:IGFBP-3 molar ratio (IRR = 0.94, 95% CI: 0.66, 1.34; Ptrend = 0.64), comparing the top with the bottom tertile. IGF-1, IGFBP-3, and the molar ratio appeared to be positively associated with endometriosis risk among women aged <40 years at blood draw (IGF-1: IRR = 1.60, 95% CI: 0.86, 2.98; IGFBP-3: IRR = 1.85, 95% CI: 1.08, 3.16; IGF-1:IGFBP-3: IRR = 1.57, 95% CI: 0.85, 2.88) but not among women aged ≥40 years at blood draw (all Pheterogeneity ≤ 0.05). Overall, these data suggest that, if IGF-1 or IGFBP-3 plays a role in the etiology of endometriosis, it is minimal and perhaps only among younger women.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3 Insulin-Like Growth Factor I Adult Adult Biomarkers Biomarkers Biomarkers Case-Control Studies Case-Control Studies Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Humans Humans Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3 Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3 Insulin-Like Growth Factor I Insulin-Like Growth Factor I

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 (35)

Cited by (14)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-13T06:10:10.580696+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:15:47.164179+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK