Ahn Soo Hyun, Singh Vinay, Tayade Chandrakant
Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
SYNG Pharmaceuticals, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Fertil Steril. 2017 Mar;107(3):523-532. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2017.01.009. Epub 2017 Feb 8.
Endometriosis is a debilitating gynecologic disease affecting millions of women across the world, with symptoms including dysmenorrhea, chronic pelvic pain, and infertility. Theorized to stem from the phenomenon of retrograde menstruation, the diagnosis of endometriosis is typically delayed by 8-10 years owing to misinterpretation of symptoms as common menstrual cramps in adolescent girls and young women. With increased incidence of endometriosis in young girls correlated with earlier menarche, the development of diagnostic biomarkers is imperative for diagnosing and treating women afflicted with endometriosis as early as we can. In the past few years, multiple reviews highlighted the list of potential diagnostic candidates in peritoneal fluid, blood, urine, and endometrial biopsies from endometriosis patients in different stages of disease and menstrual cycle. In this review, we explore the opportunities and challenges facing the field of diagnostic biomarkers for endometriosis. We highlight the importance of eutopic endometrium as a source of potential diagnostic biomarkers by looking at the expression levels of noncoding RNA in tissue as well as in blood. Finally, we discuss some of the challenges that hinder our efforts in validating candidate diagnostic biomarkers for endometriosis.
子宫内膜异位症是一种使人衰弱的妇科疾病，影响着全球数百万女性，其症状包括痛经、慢性盆腔疼痛和不孕。理论上认为子宫内膜异位症源于经血逆流现象，由于青春期女孩和年轻女性的症状常被误解为普通痛经，子宫内膜异位症的诊断通常会延迟8至10年。随着年轻女孩子宫内膜异位症发病率的增加与初潮提前相关，尽早开发诊断生物标志物对于诊断和治疗患有子宫内膜异位症的女性至关重要。在过去几年中，多项综述强调了来自处于疾病不同阶段和月经周期的子宫内膜异位症患者的腹腔液、血液、尿液和子宫内膜活检中潜在诊断候选物的清单。在本综述中，我们探讨了子宫内膜异位症诊断生物标志物领域面临的机遇和挑战。通过观察组织和血液中非编码RNA的表达水平，我们强调了在位内膜作为潜在诊断生物标志物来源的重要性。最后，我们讨论了一些阻碍我们验证子宫内膜异位症候选诊断生物标志物的挑战。
