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The following is a summary of “Women with endometriosis in the United States: National Survey of Family Growth, 2011–2019,” published in the December 2024 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology by Al-Lami et al. 

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to determine the characteristics of women with endometriosis, focusing on variables related to QoL and the relationship between infertility and the disease.   

They collected data from the National Survey of Family Growth (2011–2019), which denoted a nationally representative sample of U.S. women.  

The results showed that the analytical sample included 17,619 women aged 20–44 years. The differences were observed between women with and without endometriosis, although the association between endometriosis and certain factors such as age, marital status, body mass index, smoking, and diabetes were diminished after adjusting for variables in the logistic regression analysis and no significant associations were found between endometriosis and poverty, education, or employment. The rate of functional impairment due to pain from endometriosis was 67.5% in the weighted sample of women aged up to 49 years (2017–2019). The weighted prevalence of endometriosis was 6.4%, and the prevalence of infertility among women with endometriosis was 7.37%. Infertile women had 3.61 times higher odds of having endometriosis compared to fecund women (95% CI: 2.44–5.35).  

Investigators concluded the women with endometriosis in the U.S. exhibited distinct characteristics, a high rate of functional impairment, and associations with various demographic, socioeconomic, and reproductive factors, highlighting the need to explore the association between endometriosis and infertility. 

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949838424000239