Prevalence and severity of cyclic leg pain in women with endometriosis and in controls - effect of laparoscopic surgery

Walch K, Katharina Walch, Tamara Kernstock, Kernstock T, Poschalko-Hammerle G, Gunda Poschalko-Hammerle, Andreas Gleiß, Gleiß A, Staudigl C, Christine Staudigl, René Wenzl, Wenzl R
European journal of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology · 2014 · vol. 179 , pp. 51–57 · doi:10.1016/j.ejogrb.2014.05.027 · PMID:24965980 · W1980455849
Non-randomised trial OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 16 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-21 ⓘ

This study investigated the prevalence and severity of cyclic leg pain in women with endometriosis compared to controls and assessed the effect of laparoscopic surgery on this symptom.

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

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: In addition to dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and subfertility, pain in the lower extremities has been described to be a further complaint in women affected by endometriosis, and lysis of nerve entrapment was thought to be associated with amelioration of leg pain. Therefore, we aimed to compare the prevalence of cyclic leg pain and pain intensity between women with endometriosis and without endometriosis, and to evaluate the effect of laparoscopic surgery. STUDY DESIGN: Forty-four women with endometriosis and 58 controls were included in a prospective, controlled clinical trial at a University hospital/tertiary referral center. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires the day before and six to nine weeks after laparoscopy. The prevalence and intensity of leg pain and improvement after laparoscopic surgery, quantified according to a visual analog scale (VAS) score, were evaluated. We also recorded involvement of dermatomes, the presence and intensity of dysmenorrhea, and correlations between age, stage of endometriosis (rAFS-score), and preoperative VAS scores. RESULTS: Before surgery, more women were affected by leg pain in the endometriosis group, compared to the control group (45.5% and 25.9%, respectively). Preoperative VAS scores for leg pain, however, were not significantly different between the two groups. A moderate correlation in the preoperative VAS scores between leg pain and dysmenorrhea was observed. After laparoscopy, we found a significant improvement in leg pain intensity in both groups. The mean difference in the VAS score for pain reduction between the study group and the control group was 0.74 (95% CI: -0.61-2.08), which was not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of leg pain is increased in endometriosis, while leg pain intensity is not, compared to women without endometriosis. Laparoscopic surgery-even without preparation and decompression of nerve tissue-is associated with an improvement in pain intensity in women with endometriosis, as well as in the group without endometriosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Laparoscopy Laparoscopy Leg Leg Pain Adult Adult Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Humans Humans Middle Aged Middle Aged Pain Pain Pain

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 (33)

Cited by (15)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-12T06:17:10.165071+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:13:52.854593+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK