'Invisible' microscopic endometriosis: a review

Review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 39 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This review argues that increasing surgical magnification can visualize nearly all endometriosis, suggesting that "invisible" microscopic endometriosis is an unproven concept hindering research progress.

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

Abstract

Endometriosis can have very subtle visual appearances. All theories of origin imply some early and presumably tiny form of the disease which potentially cannot be detected by the unaided human eye. A review of the literature indicates that with increasing magnification at surgery, virtually all endometriosis can be visualized. Invisible microscopic endometriosis is an unproven entity which retards intellectual progress in the study of this disease.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Biopsy Biopsy Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Humans Humans Laparoscopy Laparoscopy Peritoneal Diseases Peritoneal Diseases Peritoneal Diseases Peritoneum Peritoneum Peritoneum

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 (17)

Cited by (39)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-18T06:15:09.303036+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:01:06.509505+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK