Gastro-intestinal symptoms and dietary intolerance in women with endometriosis

Purpose: A comprehensive assessment of gynecologic, general, and gastrointestinal complaints of a group of women with laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis compared to another group of women without endometriosis was performed. The possibility of dietary intolerance in relation to the coexistence of endometriosis was also assessed. Methods: This was a prospective, comparative study conducted on 57 patients who had had laparoscopies for various gynecologic complaints. These women were recruited sequentially into the study so as to avoid selection bias (age range 20 to 55). Twenty-three patients were diagnosed with endometriosis while the other 34 did not have this pathology. Prior to laparoscopy these patients were asked through a telephone questionnaire about associated long-term gastrointestinal symptoms, dietary intolerance, and general and gynecologic symptoms. Results: Twenty-three women were diagnosed as having pelvic endometriosis. The remaining thirtyfour patients were noted to suffer from pathology other than endometriosis. Gastro-intestinal symptoms such as dyspepsia (P<. 01) and diarrhea (P<.05) were significantly more common in the endometriosis group compared to the other group of women. Women with endometriosis complained of more gastrointestinal symptoms (53% vs. 31%) and food intolerance (26% vs. 14%) than the women without endometriosis. These differences between both groups did not attain statistical significance possibly because the study was not suitably powered to reveal this. No significant differences were noted for most of the other aggregated gynecologic and general symptoms except for shorter menstrual cycles (P<. 01) and depression (P<. 05) in the women diagnosed with endometriosis. Conclusions: Patients suffering from endometriosis in this study complained of significantly more gastrointestinal symptoms. A nonsignificant trend of dietary intolerance was noted in the women shown to suffer from endometriosis. These findings may shed some light on the pathogenesis and the management of endometriosis.