Endometriosis Diagnosis

Reducing time to diagnosis can reduce medication burden, opioid use, and chronic pain risk. Endometriosis stage does not reliably correspond to pain severity. Laparoscopic excision surgery remains the diagnostic gold standard and can also be therapeutic. A negative ultrasound does not exclude endometriosis. Transvaginal ultrasound can identify endometriomas but may miss superficial and deeply infiltrating disease. The average diagnostic delay for degenerative cervical myelopathy is reported as 2.5 years. Patients typically have about five clinic consultations before receiving a diagnosis. A negative CA-125 result does not exclude endometriosis. One observational study found that nearly 80% of people with degenerative cervical myelopathy were diagnosed more than 6 months late. A UK study estimated that fewer than 10% of incident degenerative cervical myelopathy cases are formally diagnosed. Patients with endometriosis commonly experience an 8 to 12 year delay before accurate diagnosis. Degenerative cervical myelopathy is frequently missed or diagnosed late. CA-125 is not diagnostic for endometriosis and is best used as a monitoring biomarker. MRI is mainly used before surgery for p…