A comprehensive review of hormonal and biological therapies for endometriosis: latest developments

Fabio Barra, Giovanni Grandi, Grandi G, Tantari M, Matteo Tantari, Carolina Scala, Scala C, Fabio Facchinetti, Facchinetti F, Simone Ferrero
Expert opinion on biological therapy · 2019 · vol. 19(4) , pp. 343–360 · doi:10.1080/14712598.2019.1581761 · PMID:30763525 · W2913913485
Review OA: green CC0 ⤵ 51 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-06 ⓘ

This review covers current and emerging hormonal and biological therapies for endometriosis, highlighting promising late-stage clinical trial results for GnRH antagonists and aromatase inhibitors, including the FDA-approved elagolix.

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

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Endometriosis is a chronic benign estrogen-dependent disease characterized by the presence of endometriotic glands and stroma outside the uterine cavity. Although combined hormonal contraceptives and progestins, currently available first-line treatments for endometriosis, are efficacious and well tolerated for treating disease-related pain, some women experience partial or no improvement of pain or its recurrence is frequent after discontinuation of the therapies. For these reasons, new drugs are under investigation for the treatment of endometriosis. AREAS COVERED: This review aims to give to the reader a complete and updated overview of hormonal and biological therapies for the treatment of endometriosis, underlining the latest developments in this field of research. EXPERT OPINION: Among the new drugs investigated, late clinical trials on gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists and aromatase inhibitors (AIs) have demonstrated the most promising results. For this reason, elagolix, a new GnRH-antagonist, recently received the approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating pain associated to endometriosis. Other drugs with innovative targets have been identified, but the majority of these compounds have only been evaluated in pre-clinical studies or early clinical trials. Thus, a further extensive clinical research is necessary to better elucidate their pharmacologic characteristics, their efficacy, and safety for the treatment of this benign chronic disease.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Biological Products Endometriosis Hormone Antagonists Aromatase Inhibitors Aromatase Inhibitors Aromatase Inhibitors Biological Products Biological Products Clinical Trials as Topic Clinical Trials as Topic Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Estrogen Receptor Modulators Estrogen Receptor Modulators Estrogen Receptor Modulators Female Female Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone

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 (100)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-09T06:09:53.026058+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:23:58.330360+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK