Gracias a Matthew Rosser por su blog donde destaca los resultados y la importancia de nuestro estudio sobre el impacto de la endometriosis en la calidad de vida de las pacientes.
Endometriosis:The Puerto Rican Connection
There
have been several studies that have examined the way in which endometriosis
effects the lives of women throughout a few different countries. However, most
of these studies have come from Western nations, mainly the UK and the USA.
Data on the incidence and symptoms of endometriosis throughout the rest of the
world is fairly scarce and it would be presumptuous to assume that
endometriosis affects people in the same way all over the world. So it is
excellent news to find a recent study published by the Ponce school of
medicine in Puerto Rico. Just in case you were wondering Puerto Rico
is an island nation (although technically an archipelago) just to the East of
the Dominican Republic and North of Venezuela. What is very interesting is that
this is one of the few studies I have come across that deals with endometriosis
in a predominately Hispanic population.
It is of
great importance to collect as much data as possible on endometriosis from as
many countries as possible. There are several reasons why this is so important,
for example it lets politicians and world leaders recognise that this disease
exists everywhere and is not the sole burden of a select few countries. Also
imagine if it was found that women in a certain population or country were
found to have a very low incidence of endometriosis. a finding such as this may
finally tell us why some women are more susceptible to the disease than others
and may even provide clues on how to prevent the disease.
But I
digress, back to the Puerto Rican study. I’ll give you a brief overview of what
the study found and highlight points of interest. This study surveyed 108 women
with endometriosis and these were the main findings.
40% of
the women reported a family history of endometriosis. This is interesting as it
is much larger than other countries. For example in Brazil it was reported as 8.9%,
Japan 8.8% and the United States 8.1%.
The
menstrual characteristics of the women surveyed seemed fairly normal, starting
their periods at around 11 ½ years old and with an average cycle length of 28.5
days, 5.5 days of menstruation.
The
symptoms of endometriosis in these women seem to echo those found around the
world. The majority of women experienced dysmenorrhoea (94.4%), incapacitating
pain (74.3%), Dyspareunia (70.1%) and sub infertility (63.6%).
Other
symptoms that coexisted with those mentioned above included: Back and leg pain
(75.7%), gastrointestinal upsets (69.2%), dizziness/headaches (60.7%),
depression (51.4%), fatigue (44.9%), dyschezia (painful bowel movements,
44.9%), vaginal pain (35.5%) and dysuria (painful urination, 22.4%).
Depressingly
the length of time to diagnosis seems no different in Puerto Rico, with the
average time to be diagnosed around 8.9 years, which is quite typical, sadly.
Although
this is an enlightening study, it is not without its faults. From a surveying
point of view not many people took part, and those that did have more severe
forms of endometriosis (although it has long been recognised that stage of the
disease bares little correlation to the severity of symptoms). Also as with any
survey you are relying on people judging things from memory, which if they
happened a long time ago, may not be entirely accurate. Despite this we are in
desperate need for more studies such as this from countries all over the world
and it is also interesting to see that even in countries as far away as the UK
and Puerto Rico, women’s experiences of endometriosis remain very similar.
http://endo-update.blogspot.com/2009/12/puerto-rican-connection.html
Labels: endometriosis,
symptoms
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