Endometriosis: A Retrospective Analysis of Clinical Data from a Cohort of 4,083 Patients, With Focus on Symptoms

Pietro G Signorile, Maria Cassano, Rosa Viceconte, Valentina Marcattilj, Alfonso Baldi
In vivo (Athens, Greece) · 2022 · vol. 36(2) , pp. 874–883 · doi:10.21873/invivo.12776 · PMID:35241545 · W4214843017
article OA: diamond CC0 ⤵ 22 in-corpus citations
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This retrospective analysis of 4,083 endometriosis patients found chronic fatigue, dyspareunia, and bowel disorders were most common, with symptoms peaking between ages 25-44 and higher incidence in certain occupations, while gestation number showed a protective effect against chronic fatigue.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Endometriosis is an estrogen-dependent and chronic inflammatory gynecological disease due to the presence of ectopic endometrial tissue outside the uterine cavity. This disease affects approximately 10% of the female population. In spite of its relatively high prevalence, information about its pathogenesis, diagnosis, and therapy is not complete. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We present a retrospective study performed on 4,083 patients with endometriosis, with a focus on symptoms. The archived data were analyzed investigating the distribution of symptoms among patients, the correlation of symptoms with the occupation of the patients, and finally the correlation with the other anamnestic data. Statistical associations between the data for all cases were then considered separately. RESULTS: Chronic fatigue syndrome and dyspareunia were confirmed as being among the main symptoms of endometriosis, together with bowel disorders. On the other hand, we registered a low occurrence of urinary disorders and even of chronic pelvic pain, which is usually considered among the main symptoms of endometriosis. We found an increase in incidence of symptoms starting from the age group 25-29 years up to 40-44 years and, subsequently, a significant decrease in the group aged 55-59 years. For all the symptoms analyzed, we found a higher incidence in employers, graduates and freelancers. Finally, we found a protective effect of the number of gestations on chronic fatigue syndrome. CONCLUSION: This in-depth study on such a vast cohort of affected patients clarifies some important aspects on the complex symptomatology of this still enigmatic disease. In particular, the study highlights the symptoms most closely related to endometriosis which will help speed up the diagnostic process of patients suffering from this pathology.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004412mesh:D004414mesh:D004715mesh:D017699endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindyspareunia

MeSH descriptors

Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Adult Dysmenorrhea Dysmenorrhea Female Humans Middle Aged Pelvic Pain Pelvic Pain Pelvic Pain Retrospective Studies

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