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Background and purpose: Endometriosis is a chronic and debilitating disease which is associated with a variety of morbid symptoms. This study aimed at exploring the perception and experiences of patients with endometriosis about pain. Materials and methods: A qualitative research was performed in 18 patients with endometriosis attending Arash Hospital (Tehran, 2014). They were selected by purposive sampling. Data was collected by semi-structured interview and analyzed using a conventional content analysis. Results: Two main themes emerged from the participants' experiences: 1) disruption of individual and family life and 2) feelings of threat and vulnerability. The first theme included two categories: suffering varied and diffused pain and disruption of sexual activity. Categories of the second theme were: complaints of severe and intolerable pain and various actions taken to reduce the pain. Conclusion: The findings suggest that patients with endometriosis suffer various pains that influence different parts of the body. These pains are often felt with great intensity and may have devastating consequences on their lives. Deep attention should be paied to the symptoms of these patients and health authorities should not trivialize their pain so that early diagnosis is made and suitable interventions are performed to promote such patients’ health.

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Endometriosis is a painful chronic disorder in premenopausal period that causes severe pelvic pain. It could be problematic for both the patient and physician since routine analgesic drugs may not resolve the symptoms. Therefore, various destructive surgical treatments are used in these patients and presacral neurectomy is one of the best and most recommended surgical methods. This paper reports pre sacral neurectomy operation that was performed in Sari Imam Khomeini Hospital for the first time on a 31-year-old woman suffering from severe mid pelvic pain. She was resistant to treatment but favorable results were observed after the operation.

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Background and purpose: Endometriosis is a benign disorder defined by the presence of endometrial tissue out of pelvic cavity and is related to debilitating pelvic pain and infertility. MiRNAs, are a cluster of small endogenous noncoding RNA that bind to 3׳ UTR of target mRNA and cause mRNA degradation or repressing translation of mRNA. Mir-126 is a type of miRNA that is involved in many vital processes such as invasion and angiogenesis. In this study, mir-126 rs4636297 G/A gene polymorphism was compared between infertile women with endometriosis and healthy women.

Materials and methods: This analytical study was done in 72 infertile women with endometriosis and 252 healthy women as a control group. After extraction of genomic DNA from peripheral blood samples, desired polymorphism was genotyped using Tetra-ARMS-PCR method. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS ver. 17. Genotype distributions and allelic frequencies of mir-126 rs4636297 gene polymorphism were compared between patient and control groups by Logistic regression analysis.

Results: A significant association was found between A allele of rs4636297 mir-126 polymorphism and endometriosis (OR: 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4-0.84, P= 0.005). In the dominant model of A allele (comparison between AA+AG VS. GG), AA+AG had protective effect on endometriosis (OR: 0.48, 95% CI: 0.28-0.82, P= 0.007).

Conclusion: There is a significant association between rs4636297 mir-126 polymorphism and susceptibility to endometriosis.

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 Background and purpose: Disturbance in the immune system is one of the main causes of endometriosis. Previous studies have shown the role of physical activity and antioxidant supplements on regulating the expression of genes related to improving the immune system, and reducing inflammation and infection. The present study examines the effect of swimming and vitamin E supplementation on the expression of NFKβ1 and P65 genes in endometriosis model rats.
Materials and methods: Thirty female rats were divided into six groups (n=5 per group); healthy, endometriosis, without exercise-saline-endometriosis, exercise-saline-endometriosis, without exercise supplement-endometriosis, and exercise-supplement-endometriosis. Endometriosis was surgically induced. Physical activity included swimming for eight weeks, five sessions/week and 30 minutes/session, and supplement was provided by daily gavage of 200 mg of vitamin E/kg for eight weeks. Twenty four hours after the last swimming session, the animals were sacrificed and the endometriosis tissue was removed. Relative expression levels of NFKB1 and P65 genes were measured using Real-Time PCR. Data were analyzed using one-way and two-way ANOVA.
Results: Induction of endometriosis caused a significant increase in the expression of genes studied (P<0.05). Exercise and vitamin E independently caused a significant decrease in the genes expression in rats (P<0.05). No synergistic effect was observed regarding the effect of exercise and vitamin E on the dependent variables (P>0.05).
Conclusion: According to this study, swimming and vitamin E supplement can be considered in improving endometriosis.
 

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Endometriosis is a common gynecological disorder characterized by the growth of endometrial tissue outside the uterus. Due to the inadequacy of current treatments, complementary medicine is increasing today. The aim of this study is to conduct a comparative study of endometriosis from the perspectives of Persian and modern medicine to provide a better understanding of the disease and enable the development of more effective integrated management strategies for patients. This study is a narrative review that investigates the symptoms, etiology, pathophysiology, and treatment of endometriosis from the perspectives of Persian Medicine and modern medicine. To achieve this, a comprehensive literature search was performed based on relevant keywords in major databases, and authoritative sources in Persian Medicine. The extracted data were classified and comparatively evaluated to identify similarities and differences between the two medical paradigms. Pain, infertility and menstrual disorders are the most common symptoms of endometriosis, which in Persian Medicine can occur in the context of uterine dysfunction such as uterine dystemperament or various types of uterine tumefactions, including warm, melancholic, or phlegmatic. A study of risk and protective factors in endometriosis shows that lifestyle modification plays an effective role in preventing and treating this condition. Several medicinal herbs have been recommended in Persian Medicine sources for treating different types of uterine tumefactions based on their underlying etiology. Modern studies have demonstrated that these herbs exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic effects, and suppress the proliferation and migration of endometrial cells in endometriosis. By investigating the symptoms and complications of endometriosis and comparing them with Persian medical sources, it seems that a spectrum of disorders centered on uterine dystemperament and uterine tumefactions have the greatest correspondence with endometriosis. Further studies are recommended to investigate integrated approaches in diagnostic and therapeutic dimensions.