Diagnosis of deep endometriosis: clinical examination, ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other techniques

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This review compares the diagnostic accuracy of clinical examination, ultrasonography, and MRI for deep endometriosis, along with other imaging and diagnostic methods.

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Abstract

The aim of the present review was to evaluate the contribution of clinical examination and imaging techniques, mainly transvaginal sonography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose deep infiltrating (DE) locations using prisma statement recommendations. Clinical examination has a relative low sensitivity and specificity to diagnose DE. Independently of DE locations, for all transvaginal sonography techniques a pooled sensitivity and specificity of 79% and 94% are observed approaching criteria for a triage test. Whatever the protocol and MRI devices, the pooled sensitivity and specificity for pelvic endometriosis diagnosis were 94% and 77%, respectively. For rectosigmoid endometriosis, pooled sensitivity and specificity of MRI were 92% and 96%, respectively fulfilling criteria of replacement test. In conclusion, advances in imaging techniques offer high sensitivity and specificity to diagnose DE with at least triage value and for rectosigmoid endometriosis replacement value imposing a revision of the concept of laparoscopy as the gold standard.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometrium Magnetic Resonance Imaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging Ultrasonography Ultrasonography Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometrium Endometrium Endometrium Endometrium Female Female Humans Humans Predictive Value of Tests Predictive Value of Tests

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 (81)

Cited by (50)

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europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-09T06:09:53.026058+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:20:57.725456+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK