as Medscape recently reported<\/a>,\u00a0novel clinical recommendations, advanced diagnostic tools and research into inflammation and immune responses, are bringing promise that women with endometriosis will find relief sooner and without surgery, according to experts, including Katie Burns, PhD, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine associate professor.<\/p>\nEndometriosis can develop when endometrial cells escape the uterus and cause lesions to form outside of it, leading to chronic pelvic inflammation. This can result in pain,\u00a0infertility\u00a0and decreased quality of life. The World Health Organization\u00a0estimates\u00a0that globally 190 million women of reproductive age \u2014 nearly 11% of all women \u2014 are affected by endometriosis.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) released updated clinical guidance, including comprehensive\u00a0recommendations\u00a0for the diagnosis of endometriosis. The first-line recommendation replaces laparoscopy for obtaining a clinical diagnosis with \u201ca symptom-based assessment, physical examination or both.\u201d This recommendation is listed as strongly recommended but with low-quality evidence.<\/p>\n
The goal of the new guidance is to speed diagnosis, so that endometriosis sufferers can more quickly access treatment and other resources.\u00a0The guideline also highlights the need for further research into the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of endometriosis to facilitate the development of noninvasive methods that can accurately diagnose it without surgery.<\/p>\n
At UC, Burns, a faculty member in the\u00a0Division of Environmental Genetics and Molecular Toxicology in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences,\u00a0published work\u00a0in 2018 showing in an animal model that it is an immune response that actually causes the endometrial lesions to begin. The lesions are driven by estrogen after the initial immune response.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up\u00a0study, Burns and colleagues used samples of menstrual effluent to study neutrophils (the white blood cells that initiate an immune response) in women with and without endometriosis.<\/p>\n
Burns said\u00a0the findings, published in 2025, \u201cindicate that neutrophils are signaling incorrectly in endometriosis and may not be clearing debris as they should be doing.” Morphological changes in white blood cells in menstrual effluent may be a noninvasive endometriosis diagnostic tool, she said.<\/p>\n
Burns has a patent pending for a noninvasive endometriosis diagnostic tool.<\/p>\n
Read the full Medscape article.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The average time to clinical diagnosis of endometriosis is nine years. Definitive diagnosis of the disease is difficult,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[77384,77382,18,3015,77381,135,19,4723,17,5,177516,177517,172,5501],"class_list":{"0":"post-388708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-academic-health-center","9":"tag-college-of-medicine","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-environmental-health","12":"tag-faculty-staff","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-in-the-news","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-obstetrics-gynecology","19":"tag-office-of-research","20":"tag-research","21":"tag-thought-leadership"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}