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Endometriosis Pathogenesis

Satisfactory Essays

Endometriosis is a benign chronic gynaecological disease characterized by the presence of endometrium- like tissue-glands and stroma- outside the uterine cavity [1]. This condition may affect up to 10–15% of women in childbearing-age, causing pelvic pain [2], and infertility [3]. Although endometriosis was first reported by Carl von Rokitansky more than a hundred years ago [4], the pathogenesis of this condition is still not clear [5]. Sampson's theory of retrograde menstruation is probably the most accepted among scientific community, though this explanation cannot adequately account for all the pathogenesis of the disease [6]. Previous studies report that retrograde menstruation occurs in >90% of women [7], nevertheless, the incidence of …show more content…

Abundant bulk of evidence suggests that patients with endometriosis have an immunity dysfunction that enables ectopic endometrial cells to implant and proliferate [8–11]. Notwithstanding, the onset and progression of the disease is probably not only an immune issue, but the result of a complex series of processes that lead to the attachment of endometrial cells to the peritoneal surface [12], invasion and estrogen-related proliferation [13], vasculogenesis [14], angiogenesis and finally chronic inflammation [15,16]. Chronic inflammation is associated with an overproduction of prostaglandins [17], metalloproteinases, cytokines and chemokines, creating a self-supporting loop that mantains and amplificates the progression of the disease [18–20]. Once the process is started, many profibrotic mediators also play a role in the fibrogenesis associated with endometriosis [21]. From an immunological point of view, it has been shown that circulating natural killer (NK) cells are capable of destroying endometrial cells [22]. Thus, it has been proposed that NK cells may have a pivotal role in the immune control of endometriosis [23,24].

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