[Intestinal endometriosis]

Recurrent abdominal pain in women during the ovulatory years as well as during the climacteric period may be due to the intestinal form of endometriosis. Rectal discharge of blood and correlation with the menstrual cycle are not common. The clinical symptoms are, depending on the affected parts of the intestines, not typical and radiologic investigation is only warranted to exclude intestinal cancer. The treatment of choice for intestinal endometriosis, in spite of the great success of antigonadotropic therapy, should be surgical resection, a view borne out by the authors' cases. Antigonadotropic therapy is a great success in the case of multiple intestinal localizations, but the secondary, fibromatous-reactive lesions cannot be treated by hormones and may become symptomatic at any time.