Tobacco smoking and risk of endometriosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Francesca Bravi, Fabio Parazzini, Sonia Cipriani, Francesca Chiaffarino, Francesça Chiaffarino, Elena Ricci, Vito Chiàntera, Vito Chiantera, Paola Viganò, Carlo La Vecchia
BMJ open · 2014 · vol. 4(12) , pp. e006325 · doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006325 · PMID:25534211 · W2017734786
review OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 59 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This meta-analysis of 38 studies involving 13,129 women found no evidence for an association between tobacco smoking and the risk of endometriosis.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Since conflicting results have been published on the role of tobacco smoking on the risk of endometriosis, we provide an up-to-date summary quantification of this potential association. DESIGN: We performed a PubMed/MEDLINE search of the relevant publications up to September 2014, considering studies on humans published in English. We searched the reference list of the identified papers to find other relevant publications. Case-control as well as cohort studies have been included reporting risk estimates on the association between tobacco smoking and endometriosis. 38 of the 1758 screened papers met the inclusion criteria. The selected studies included a total of 13,129 women diagnosed with endometriosis. SETTING: Academic hospitals. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Risk of endometriosis in tobacco smokers. RESULTS: We obtained the summary estimates of the relative risk (RR) using the random effect model, and assessed the heterogeneity among studies using the χ(2) test and quantified it using the I(2) statistic. As compared to never-smokers, the summary RR were 0.96 (95% CI 0.86 to 1.08) for ever smokers, 0.95 (95% CI 0.81 to 1.11) for former smokers, 0.92 (95% CI 0.82 to 1.04) for current smokers, 0.87 (95% CI 0.70 to 1.07) for moderate smokers and 0.93 (95% CI 0.69 to 1.26) for heavy smokers. CONCLUSIONS: The present meta-analysis provided no evidence for an association between tobacco smoking and the risk of endometriosis. The results were consistent considering ever, former, current, moderate and heavy smokers, and across type of endometriosis and study design.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Smoking Smoking Cessation Female Global Health Humans Morbidity Morbidity Risk Factors Smoking Smoking Smoking Cessation

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 (99)

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