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Family Incidence of Endometriosis in First-, Second-, and Third-Degree
Relatives: Case-control Study
Family Incidence of Endometriosis in First-, Second-, and Third-Degree
Relatives: Case-control Study
Kazem Nouri1 , Johannes Ott1 , Birgitt Krupitz2
, Johannes C Huber1 and Rene Wenzl3
1 Department of Gynecologic Endocrinology and Reproductive
Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
2 LKH Gmunden, Upper Austria, Austria
3 Department of Gynecology and Gynecologic Oncology, Medical
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology 2010, 8:85doi:10.1186/1477-7827-8-85
Research Published: 11 July 2010
Abstract
Background
Initial publications examining the hereditary aspects of endometriosis
appeared in the early seventies and demonstrated an up to seven-fold risk for
endometriosis in first-degree relatives of endometriosis patients. The aim was
to evaluate the influence of hereditary aspects on the endometriosis risk in our
patient collective.
Methods
In a retrospective cohort study we evaluated the incidence of endometriosis
among first-, second-, and third-degree relatives of endometriosis patients and
compare it with its incidence among first-, second-, and third-degree relatives
of patients without endometriosis.
Result(s)
Eighty patients in whom endometriosis had been confirmed laparoscopically
and histologically by biopsy and 60 patients in whom no endometriosis had been
found during laparoscopy were given a questionnaire about the presence of
symptoms associated with endometriosis and its family incidence. Patients of
both the endometriosis and the control group were 37.7 ± 6.2 and 45.9 ± 12.0
years of age at the time of the interview, respectively (p < 0.05). Information
about the presence of endometriosis was more readily available for relatives of
those in the endometriosis group than for those in the control group (325/749
[43.4%] vs. 239/425 [56.2%], p < 0.05). In 5/136 (3.7%) and 8/134 (6.0%)
first-degree relatives of endometriosis patients and the control group,
respectively, information about the presence of endometriosis was not available
(p = 0.554). Endometriosis was found in 8/136 (5.9%) first-degree relatives of
patients and in 4/134 (3.0%) first-degree relatives of controls in the real-case
analysis (p = 0.248. When comparing endometriosis characteristics between
endometriosis patients with and without a history of familial endometriosis, no
significant differences were found.
Conclusion(s)
There is a trend toward an increased familial incidence of endometriosis. In
contrast to the literature, we found a less dramatic increase in familial risk
for the development of endometriosis.
Full article available in
PDF format
Received: 12 May 2010
Accepted: 11 July 2010
Published: 11 July 2010
© 2010 Nouri et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 , which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found
online at:
http://www.rbej.com/content/8/1/85
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