Yet, despite such potential for severe medical consequences, many women and girls still do not receive the timely and expert medical care needed in order to properly diagnose and treat ovarian disease caused by endometriosis. Recent studies also suggest that endometriosis of the ovaries is associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer as well.Īs one of the leading causes of hysterectomy and hospitalization, with an economic burden estimated to be $119 billion globally in medical costs and lost productivity, endometriosis also represents one of the most serious public health issues of our era. However, the most serious potential outcomes of untreated or poorly treated ovarian endometriosis can be devastating and include irreversible organ dysfunction, debilitating chronic pelvic pain, irreversible depletion of ovarian reserve, sub-fertility, infertility, and other potential complications that call for urgent medical intervention. In less severe or asymptomatic cases, mild pain and menstrual irregularity may be the only discernible symptoms. With the ovaries playing such vast and crucial roles in a woman’s health, as you can imagine, when endometriosis affects the ovaries it can potentially cause pathological outcomes that may negatively impact a woman’s health in a variety of ways. Indeed, when you consider that a woman’s lifetime of reproductive processes are regulated by a “complex feedback system and signaling network between the brain (hypothalamus-pituitary-ovarian axis,) and ovaries”, and between the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, thyroid, and adrenal glands, then you begin to appreciate just how important the ovaries are to a woman’s overall physiology. As well, researchers now believe that the ovaries also produce their own non-neuronal sources of key neurotransmitters. There is even growing evidence that the ovaries communicate with important neurotransmitters like acetylcholine and dopamine in ways previously unrecognized. However, the amazing feats of your ovaries don’t stop there they also produce essential paracrine-autocrine hormones like oxytocin, relaxin, inhibin, activin, and follistan. Also called Endometriomas, Ovarian Endometriotic CystsĮndometriomas still mistaken for functional ovarian cysts: The ovaries are one of the most complex and important organs of the female anatomy, not just for their life-giving properties, but also because of their dual role as endocrine organs (glands) that produce some of a woman’s most vital hormones, such as androgen, estrogen, and progesterone.
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