Endometriosis and infertility: a systematic review

Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease that is characterized by the presence of benign endometrial stroma outside the uterine cavity. Endometriosis is considered a major cause of chronic pelvic pain. The correlation between endometriosis and infertility is still elusive, although such an association was clinically recognized. The present review aimed at assessing the prevalence of endometriosis among infertility and the association between endometriosis and infertility by reviewing the previous studies conducted on this subject. Scientific databases, including PubMed, Elsevier, and Google scholar, were explored to search for articles related to our subject. The keywords involved in the search process were "Endometriosis, Prevalence, Prevalent, Proportion, Infertility, Association, and Correlation." The inclusion criteria were original English articles published after 2005 that reported the prevalence of endometriosis among infertile women. A total of 1,590 articles were obtained, and only nine articles were eligible and included in the final analysis. A total of 2,487 women were included in the nine studies. The method of assessment of endometriosis was mainly diagnostic laparoscopy. The prevalence of endometriosis among infertile women ranged between 4.9% and 47%. Endometriosis is a common condition that is highly prevalent among infertile women. Endometriosis was also more prone to be associated with primary infertility.