Serum concentrations of growth factors in women with and without endometriosis: the action of anti-endometriosis medicines

Ioannis Matalliotakis, I M Matalliotakis, Matalliotakis IM, A G Goumenou, Anastasia G. Goumenou, Goumenou AG, Koumantakis GE, Georgios Koumantakis, G E Koumantakis, M A Neonaki, Neonaki MA, M Neonaki, E Koumantakis, E E Koumantakis, Koumantakis EE, E Dionyssopoulou, Eva Dionyssopoulou, Irene Athanassakis, I Athanassakis, Athanassakis I, S. Vassiliadis, Vassiliadis S
International Immunopharmacology · 2003 · vol. 3(1) , pp. 81–89 · doi:10.1016/s1567-5769(02)00216-3 · PMID:12538037 · W1969551578
Non-randomised trial OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 85 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-07-09 ⓘ

Serum vascular endothelial growth factor (sVEGF) levels were higher in women with endometriosis compared to controls, and danazol treatment decreased sVEGF while increasing sEGF-R.

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

Abstract

Endometriosis is a common gynecologic syndrome of unknown etiology and pathogenesis. Growth factors and inflammatory mediators produced by peritoneal leukocytes have recently been postulated to participate in the pathogenesis of endometriosis. Angiogenic factors released from peritoneal macrophages may also play a role in the development of this disease. In the present study, we investigate the soluble levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor-receptor (EGF-R), granulocyte/macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in the serum of 28 women with and 20 without endometriosis. We also compared these levels before, during and after treatment with danazol and leuprorelin acetate depot, the two therapeutic regiments of choice concerning this disease. We found that only sVEGF levels were higher in women with endometriosis in comparison to controls (P < 0.001) while sEGF-R is not present. GM-CSF, IGF-1 and IFN-gamma soluble levels are not affected in either healthy or endometriotic subjects. The 6-month treatment with danazol decreased sVEGF levels (P < 0.02) and increased sEGF-R levels (P < 0.001). These observations support the view that VEGF may be associated with the disease process and that danazol may bring sVEGF levels to a normal threshold. However, future studies will be focused on the anti-angiogenic control of the action of VEGF in patients with endometriosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Adult Adult Danazol Danazol Danazol Delayed-Action Preparations Delayed-Action Preparations Endometriosis Endometriosis Endothelial Growth Factors Endothelial Growth Factors Endothelial Growth Factors ErbB Receptors ErbB Receptors ErbB Receptors Female Female Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor

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 (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-13T06:10:10.580696+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:00:51.939714+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK