Cutaneous Endometriosis: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Rodolfo H Gonzalez, Minakshi Sardha Singh, Sara A Hamza
The American journal of case reports · 2021 · vol. 22 , pp. e932493 · doi:10.12659/ajcr.932493 · PMID:34547012 · W3193931025
review OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 15 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This case report and literature review describes a 39-year-old woman with painful scar endometriosis confirmed by histopathology, highlighting surgical resection as the standard treatment but emphasizing the need for follow-up due to recurrence risk.

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

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This paper describes a rare case of abdominal wall cutaneous endometriosis in a 39-year-old woman with a painful, discolored ~3 cm nodular mass at the left border of an emergency cesarean (“inverted T” incision), with symptoms that became cyclic and included brown/red discharge. Using clinical assessment and soft-tissue ultrasound with color Doppler (hypoechoic lesion with internal vascularity), the authors proceeded to surgical exploration and complete excision, after which histopathology confirmed endometriosis involving fibro-adipose tissue with dense fibrous scarring; they also report molecular markers in general but did not perform them because of the confirmed pathology. The authors’ review emphasizes that diagnosis is challenging due to nonspecific appearance and frequent misdiagnosis among infections, benign lesions, and tumors, and notes that noninvasive imaging can be inconclusive and recurrence can occur even after treatment, with reported recurrence rates after excision in the literature. This paper is centrally about endometriosis—specifically cutaneous (scar/abdominal wall) endometriosis arising in the cesarean scar.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND Endometriosis is a unique entity described in ample literature as the decidualization of endometrial tissues under the influence of gynecological hormones outside the uterine cavity. The post-surgical presence of ectopic endometrial tissue on the skin is known as abdominal wall endometriosis, cutaneous endometriosis, or scar endometriosis. Iatrogenic implantation of detached endometrial tissues at the incision site is the most widely accepted theory for this rare monad. The unspecific scar endometriosis presentation makes it challenging to diagnose. Moreover, it can easily be confused with hematoma, hernia, lipoma, abscess, scar granuloma, and tumor. Here, we report and discuss a rare case of scar endometriosis with various available treatment modalities. CASE REPORT We delineate a case of a 39-year-old woman with abdominal wall cutaneous endometriosis. An "inverted T" incision opened the abdominal and uterine cavity as it was a problematic preterm breech in labor. After an uneventful postoperative and postpartum period, she presented with a painful, discolored nodular mass of approximately 3 cm in diameter at the left border of the cesarian scar, developed over 1.5 years, often accompanied by drainage of brownish discharge. Ultrasonography with color Doppler showed a hypoechoic lesion with internal vascularity, corroborated our preliminary diagnosis of scar endometriosis, which was further confirmed by surgical excision and histopathology. CONCLUSIONS A proper surgical resection is the standard treatment line for scar endometriosis. However, patients need regular follow-up to look for recurrences, even after treatment. Further studies are recommended to establish factors associated with cutaneous endometriosis recurrence.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Abdominal Wall Abdominal Wall Abdominal Wall Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Adult Cesarean Section Cicatrix Female Humans Infant, Newborn Neoplasm Recurrence, Local Neoplasm Recurrence, Local Pregnancy

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 (19)

Cited by (15)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-04T01:30:01.192114+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:24:20.309598+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK