MANAGEMENT OF COMPLICATIONS OF ENDOMETRIOSIS

Women experience varied discomforts due to endometriosis. It must first be decided which to consider complications of the disease. The site of an endometrioma does not of itself assure development of difficulties, and extragenital or extrapelvic foci may not cause eventual distress. Often there seems little correlation between the severity of symptoms and the extent of the disease. Certainly, for the purposes of this discussion, unexpected or undesirable effects of endocrine, radiation or surgical treatment should not be ascribed to endometriosis. I would consider as complications disturbances resulting whenever disseminated superficial lesions or a single penetrating nodule, symptomatically or mechanically, interferes with the function of the reproductive, urinary or digestive tracts.

Such complications give rise to nonspecific symptoms, all of which are commonly due to lesions other than endometriosis. The mere fact that a patient's complaints may be due to this disease tends to keep attention focused on this possibility.