Endométriose : une maladie longtemps ignorée, malgré des symptômes décrits depuis l’Antiquité

The paper reviews the long history of endometriosis, from ancient medical descriptions of severe menstrual pain, dysmenorrhea, pelvic pain, and infertility, through later reinterpretations and misunderstandings of women’s pain. It highlights a shift in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Karl von Rokitansky described ectopic uterine-like tissue outside the uterus and John A. Sampson introduced the term “endometriosis” and proposed retrograde menstruation as a key explanatory framework, while noting that this alone cannot account for all disease forms. The authors emphasize persistent diagnostic delay (often 7–10 years) driven by symptom heterogeneity and societal minimization of “normal” menstrual pain, while also describing advances in imaging and institutional strategies such as France’s 2022 national endometriosis plan. It also describes a planned French research project (PRECURSOR) targeting very painful menstruation in adolescence to evaluate whether early, multi-approach management could prevent chronic pelvic pain and potentially reduce later endometriosis risk. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it provides a historical narrative and describes current efforts, including a proposed early-intervention study focused on adolescents with severe menstrual pain.

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