Sequential imaging of intraneural sciatic nerve endometriosis provides insight into symptoms of cyclical sciatica

article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 12 in-corpus citations
AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06+body, 2026-06-12

Sequential MRI during a patient's menstrual cycle revealed a larger, hyperintense lumbosacral plexus with intraneural endometriosis and hemorrhage during menstruation.

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

AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 · read from full text

This paper reports the first case of intraneural lumbosacral plexus endometriosis with sequential MRI obtained at two menstrual phases, including the luteal phase and menstruation, in a patient with cyclical sciatica symptoms. Compared with the first examination, the MRI during menstruation showed a larger, more T2-hyperintense lumbosacral plexus, an enlarged intraneural endometriosis cyst, and imaging features interpreted as recent hemorrhage. The authors describe this as consistent with perineural spread from the uterus to the lumbosacral plexus along autonomic nerves and then to the sciatic nerve and spinal nerves, while noting that a cause-and-effect relationship is suggested by symptom and imaging change but requires additional corroboration. This paper is centrally about endometriosis—sequential intraneural sciatic nerve imaging to explain cyclical sciatica related to lumbosacral plexus endometriosis.

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

Full text 4,328 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · 2 sections · click to expand

Abstract

Endometriosis of the nerve often remains an elusive diagnosis. We report the first case of intraneural lumbosacral plexus endometriosis with sequential imaging at different phases of the menstrual cycle: during the luteal phase and menstruation. Compared to the first examination, the examination performed during the patient’s period revealed the lumbosacral plexus larger and hyperintense on T2-weighted imaging. The intraneural endometriosis cyst was also larger and showed recent hemorrhage. Additionally, this case represents another example of perineural spread of endometriosis from the uterus to the lumbosacral plexus along the autonomic nerves and then distally to the sciatic nerve and proximally to the spinal nerves. Similar content being viewed by others Abbreviations - EM: - Endometriosis - LSP: - Lumbosacral plexus - DIE: - Deep infiltrative endometriosis - MRI: - Magnetic resonance imaging - IUD: - Intrauterine device - MRC: - Medical research council - T1WI: - T1-weighted image - T2WI: - T2-weighted image - FS: - Fat saturated - FSE: - Fast spin echo - H&E: - Hematoxylin & eosin

References

Anaf V, Simon P, El Nakadi I, Fayt I, Simonart T, Buxant F, Noel JC (2002) Hyperalgesia, nerve infiltration and nerve growth factor expression in deep adenomyotic nodules, peritoneal and ovarian endometriosis. Hum Reprod 17:1895–1900 Botterill EM, Esler SJ, McIlwaine KT, Jagasia N, Ellett L, Maher PJ, Yang N (2015) Endometriosis: does the menstrual cycle affect magnetic resonance (MR) imaging evaluation? Eur J Radiol 84:2071–2079 Capek S, Howe BM, Amrami KK, Spinner RJ (2015) Perineural spread of pelvic malignancies to the lumbosacral plexus and beyond: clinical and imaging patterns. Neurosurg Focus 39:E14 Eskenazi B, Warner ML (1997) Epidemiology of endometriosis. Obstet Gynecol Clin N Am 24:235–258 Genc B, Solak A, Sahin N, Genc M, Ogul H, Sivrikoz ON, Kantarci M (2014) Diffusion-weighted imaging in the evaluation of hormonal cyclic changes in abdominal wall endometriomas. Clin Radiol 69:130–136 Meuleman C, Vandenabeele B, Fieuws S, Spiessens C, Timmerman D, D’Hooghe T (2009) High prevalence of endometriosis in infertile women with normal ovulation and normospermic partners. Fertil Steril 92:68–74 Possover M, Chiantera V (2007) Isolated infiltrative endometriosis of the sciatic nerve: a report of three patients. Fertil Steril 87:417.e417–419 Possover M, Baekelandt J, Flaskamp C, Li D, Chiantera V (2007) Laparoscopic neurolysis of the sacral plexus and the sciatic nerve for extensive endometriosis of the pelvic wall. Minim Invasive Neurosurg 50:33–36 Siquara de Sousa AC, Capek S, Amrami KK, Spinner RJ (2015) Neural involvement in endometriosis: review of anatomic distribution and mechanisms. Clin Anat 28:1029–1038 Siquara de Sousa AC, Capek S, Howe BM, Jentoft ME, Amrami KK, Spinner RJ (2015) Magnetic resonance imaging evidence for perineural spread of endometriosis to the lumbosacral plexus: report of 2 cases. Neurosurg Focus 39:E15 Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Ethics declarations Conflicts of interest None. Patient consent The patients have consented to the submission of the case reports to the journal. This study was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and 2009. Additional information Comment This is a very interesting paper on a female patient with symptomatic endometriosis involving her lumbosacral plexus and sciatic nerve at the notch level correlating with anatomical changes involving her lumbosacral plexus seen on MRI with pain at two different time points during her menstrual cycle. Although the findings and response to treatment suggest a cause-and-effect relationship, additional studies to corroborate this hypothesis are needed. This paper further supports this group’s hypothesis that not only tumors but also endometriosis can spread along nerves. Michel Kliot Illinois, USA I Rights and permissions About this article Cite this article Capek, S., Amrami, K.K., Howe, B.M. et al. Sequential imaging of intraneural sciatic nerve endometriosis provides insight into symptoms of cyclical sciatica. Acta Neurochir 158, 507–512 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-015-2683-2 Received: Accepted: Published: Issue date: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-015-2683-2

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

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Sciatica Sciatic Nerve Endometriosis Female Humans Lumbosacral Plexus Lumbosacral Plexus Luteal Phase Magnetic Resonance Imaging Menstrual Cycle Menstruation Middle Aged Recurrence Sciatica Sciatica Sciatic Nerve Uterine Hemorrhage Uterine Hemorrhage Uterine Hemorrhage

Citation neighborhood

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. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (10)

Cited by (12)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-12T06:13:51.797165+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:21:19.813018+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK