Publication:

Cohort study of endometriosis in south Indian district

Background Endometriosis is a life threatening problem in reproductive age women. The aim of the present study is to correlate the association of endometriosis with primary and secondary infertility pertaining to age distribution, staging of the disease based on AFS scoring by laparoscopy.

Methods A retrospective approach of using a questionnaire method to collect the case history of women suffering from endometriosis at Ramakrishna Medical centre, Trichy during the period of January 2012 – June 2015 was carried out. Women having endometriosis with infertility problem was an inclusion criteria whereas, women without endometriosis are excluded from the study, a total of 195 women were subjected to incorporate various parameter and verdict the inference of this study. In addition, other parameters such as the Incidence of endometriosis among patients subjected to laparoscopy, age of the patients, type of infertility, also the stages of endometriosis based upon the laparoscopic findings were recorded. Further the analysis of clinical data was carried out using MS excel and SPSS version-16.

Results Incidence of endometriosis among infertility patients who have undergone laparoscopy was 195/569 (34.2%), Age group at which highest incidence observed is between 26-30 years (37%). Between the ages of 21 to 25 years incidence of endometriosis was 18%, 21-30 years which is the optimum age for reproduction the incidence was 55 %. Primary infertility was seen in 84.5% subjects. Some association was seen in Stages of endometriosis and laparoscopy findings whereas there was no association between the age and stages of the disease. PCOS, fibroids and Mullerian anamolies were observed to be associated with endometriosis.

Conclusions This study concludes that endometriosis predominantly affects the women of reproductive age group and causes primary infertility in majority of the patients. A laparoscopic finding marks as a standard tool in diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis which would be reported by association between endometriosis stage with age of women and laparoscopic findings.