Diagnosis

Endometriosis is a disease that has always been thought to almost exclusively affect women of reproductive age. It often presents with an array of clinical symptoms, including pain, dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, cyclic pain, abnormal uterine bleeding, and infertility. The reported prevalence is over 70% in those who complain of pelvic pain and more than 80% of women evaluated for a combination of pelvic pain and infertility,1 though this can vary depending on the age, race, and socioeconomic status of the defined population.2 With the increased use of laparoscopy, the prevalence of endometriosis is even more common among adolescents than previously thought, which has been reported to be 45-58% of adolescents who present with abdominal pain and dysmenorrhea.2,3 The youngest reported histologically confirmed case of endometriosis is 10.5 years old.4