One in three women with endometriosis has a miscarriage, compared to 12% in the general population. This is the result of a study conducted among 750 women.
Suffering is great for women who suffer from endometriosis. Pelvic pain is well known, as is the risk of infertility. These patients are also more prone to miscarriages. A team from Cochin hospital (Paris) has just demonstrated this. She publishes her findings in the May edition of the journal Human Reproduction.
Prof. Charles Chapron’s team examined the preoperative questionnaires of 750 women followed in the gynecology department for a benign procedure. During the operation, 284 of them were diagnosed with endometriosis. The questionnaires they had filled out mentioned in particular whether they had ever become pregnant, whether they had suffered a miscarriage or infertility or whether they had had recourse to fertilization. in vitro.
10 percentage points difference
The double penalty seems to be confirmed for patients with endometriosis.
29% of them are victims of a spontaneous abortion against 19.4% in the group which did not present this inflammatory disease. “We have clearly demonstrated the existence of an increased risk of premature miscarriage in the first trimester of pregnancy in the event of endometriosis”, estimates Dr. Pietro Santulli, who signs this publication.
But the research didn’t stop there. The researchers performed a second analysis, after ruling out factors that could bias the results, such as the presence of infertility in the past. 19.6% of endometriotic women are then victims of miscarriage against 12.3% in the other group.
Understanding the causes
The gap is even wider between the two groups when fertility problems have lasted at least a year in the past. In this case, half of the women with endometriosis have a spontaneous abortion, compared to 30% in the control group.
These results constitute “a first step”, according to Dr. Santulli. But according to him, further work is needed in this still little-known field. His team has also planned to better understand the biological origin of the link between endometriosis and miscarriage, through research on mice.
In a press release, Inserm (Institute for Health and Medical Research) also announced the launch of a research program, still at Cochin hospital, on nearly 1,500 women. The objective will be to study the impact of endometriosis on various parameters of pregnancy and its complications, including the risk of prematurity.
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