Experimental treatments of endometriosis

Abstract

Endometriosis is defined as the presence of endometrial gland and stroma outside the uterine cavity. It is an estrogen-dependent disease and is associated with chronic pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia and infertility. The treatment of endometriosis is conservative or radical surgery, medical therapies or their combination. All currently used hormonally active treatments are effective in the treatment of endometriosis; however, the adverse effects of these hormonal treatments limit their long-term use. Moreover, recurrence rates are high after cessation of therapy, and the treatments have no benefit in endometriosis-associated infertility. Therefore, researchers are working on new treatment modalities with improved side effects, mainly focusing on the molecular targets involved in etiopathogenesis of endometriosis. Here we summarized these novel treatments modalities.

Keywords: antiangiogenic agents; antioxidant agents; apoptotic agent; aromatase; aromatase inhibitors; dopamine; endometriosis; treatment.