Intestinal endometriosis: role of laparoscopy in diagnosis and treatment

Endometriosis is a disease in women in which endometrial tissue is found in abnormal sites, frequently in the peritoneum and pelvic viscera. Endometriosis may therefore affect the genital organs, particularly the left ovary, or it may occur elsewhere in the abdomen, principally the digestive tract in the sigmoid-rectum. The difficulty of prompt diagnosis of nongenital endometriotic lesions, whose symptoms are usually nonspecific, and the inadequacy of traditional diagnostic approaches mean the disease has time to progress. A case report is used here to show the use of laparoscopy with immediate histologic examination for the prompt diagnosis and intraoperative treatment of intestinal endometriosis. For patients with extragenital endometriosis, laparoscopic resection offers immediate postoperative advantages but also gives gradual relief of symptoms and in some cases improves reproductive capacity; there is also less formation of adhesions in this disease, which by definition tends to cause them, often making a second look indispensable.