Medical and Surgical Management of Endometriosis

Abstract

Endometriosis is a chronic, multifactorial disease, affecting predominantly healthy young women with a negative impact on quality of life [1]. It is associated mostly with pelvic pain, dyspareunia, and intestinal disorders and can lead to infertility. Treatment of deep endometriosis (DE) can be either hormonal, aiming at inducing a hypoestrogenic state, atrophy or quiescence of endometriotic lesions, and a reduction of the chronic peritoneal inflammatory status, [2] or surgical, aiming at restoring the normal anatomy by removing endometriotic lesions. In order to plan an appropriate medical or surgical treatment of this condition, imaging (ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)) is useful for assessing the number, size, and anatomical localization of the endometriotic nodules [3, 4].