Elevated immunoreactivity to tissue factor and its association with dysmenorrhea severity and the amount of menses in adenomyosis

Heavy menstrual bleeding and dysmenorrhea are two top complaints from women with symptomatic adenomyosis, yet their etiology is poorly understood. Tissue factor (TF) has been shown to be upregulated in endometriosis and at the endometrial bleeding sites of women with long-term progestin only contraception. We sought to investigate the expression and localization of TF in eutopic and ectopic endometrium of women with adenomyosis and in endometrium of women without adenomyosis. We also sought to determine the relationship, if any, between TF immunoreactivity and the amount of menses, uterus size and severity of dysmenorrhea.

We retrieved tissue samples of eutopic and ectopic endometrium from 50 women with adenomyosis and of endometrium from 18 women without adenomyosis. The tissue sections were subjected to immunostaining and microscopic evaluation to assess the presence and localization of TF in both proliferative and secretory phases in both eutopic and ectopic endometrium and normal endometrium. Information on the amount of menses, severity of dysmenorrhea and other information were collected.

We found that TF immunoreactivity was significantly increased in both eutopic and ectopic endometrium as compared with normal endometrium. In addition, we found that the elevated TF immunoreactivity is associated with heavy menses and increased severity of dysmenorrhea.

These results suggest that TF is involved in adenomyosis-associated heavy menstrual bleeding and dysmenorrhea and thus may be a potential therapeutic target in treating symptomatic adenomyosis and perhaps also chronic pelvic pain in women with adenomyosis.