Quality of life and symptoms of pain in patients with endometriomas compared to those with other endometriosis lesions: a cross-sectional study

Fleur Serge Kanti, Valérie Allard, Sarah Maheux-Lacroix, Sarah Maheux‐Lacroix
BMC women's health · 2024 · vol. 24(1) , pp. 72 · doi:10.1186/s12905-024-02919-1 · PMID:38279101 · PMC10821264 · W4391270190
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 3 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This study found no difference in overall quality of life between endometriosis patients with and without endometriomas, but identified specific differences in superficial and deep dyspareunia symptoms.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 ⓘ

This cross-sectional observational study recruited 248 adults diagnosed with endometriosis from a Quebec outpatient gynecology cohort (Jan 2020–Aug 2023) and compared those with endometriomas (n=81) versus other lesion types without endometriomas (n=167) using the French Canadian Endometriosis Health Profile-30 (EHP-30) pain subscale for quality-of-life scoring and an 11-point numerical rating scale for endometriosis-associated pain symptoms in the prior four weeks. The mean quality-of-life score did not differ between groups, and pain symptom patterns showed specific differences: endometriomas were associated with lower deep dyspareunia scores and higher superficial dyspareunia scores, with comorbid infertility modifying superficial dyspareunia intensity. A key limitation is that the paper’s exclusion criteria required that endometrioma versus other lesion type could be differentiated but imaging/histopathology data were not always available at the time of study. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it directly compares quality of life and pain characteristics between patients with endometriomas and those with other endometriosis lesion types.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Endometriomas are genetically distinct from other endometriosis lesions and could be associated with a predisposition to excessive inflammation. However, differences in clinical presentation between types of endometriosis lesions have not been fully elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the quality of life and pain scores of patients with endometriomas compared to those with other types of endometriosis lesions. METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted between January 2020 and August 2023. Patients diagnosed with endometriosis completed the Endometriosis Health Profile 30 pain subscale questionnaire for their quality of life score and rated their endometriosis-associated pain symptoms using an 11-point numerical rating scale. The data were analyzed for comparison through multivariate linear regression models. RESULTS: A total of 248 patients were included and divided into endometrioma (81, 33%) and nonendometrioma (167, 67%) groups. The mean age of the patients was 37.1 ± 7.5 years. Most participants were Canadian or North American (84%). One-third of the patients reported experiencing up to four concurrent pain symptoms. The most reported pain included deep dyspareunia (90%), chronic pelvic pain (84%) and lower back pain (81%). The mean quality of life score was 45.9 ± 25.9. We observed no difference in quality of life scores between patients with and without endometriomas. Patients with endometriomas had lower mean scores for deep dyspareunia (0.8; 95% CI [0 to 1.5]; p = 0.049) and higher mean scores for superficial dyspareunia (1.4; 95% CI [0.2 to 2.6]; p = 0.028). Comorbid infertility (p = 0.049) was a factor that modified superficial dyspareunia intensity in patients with endometriomas. CONCLUSION: In patients with endometriosis, evidence was insufficient to conclude that the presence of endometriomas was not associated with a greater or lesser quality of life, but differences in specific symptoms of dyspareunia were identified.

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Outcome instruments

EHP-30 NRS-pain

Condition tags

dyspareuniaendometriosischronic_pelvic_painendometriomainfertility

MeSH descriptors

Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia Dyspareunia

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