Just a quick post this time, I found a report of two unusual presentations of ovarian endometriosis. One case was a woman of 57 and the other a woman of 80, which is the oldest woman with endometriosis I’ve heard of (although I’m willing to be corrected). Both cases are in post menopausal women, which in itself it pretty unusual in itself. The reason for this is that during menopause the ovaries start shutting down and stop producing estrogen. This isn’t so good when you consider the side effects - like hot flashes, mood swings, bone density loss etc – however, if you have endometriosis then lack of estrogen is generally considered a positive as estrogen is thought to be the ‘fuel’ of endometriosis. In case of point, a 15 year follow up study of 130 women with endometriosis from Norway found that 96.9% of them were pain free after menopause.
Considering that, it’s pretty obvious why most of the medical therapy for endometriosis is focussed on reducing estrogen within the body. However, if a woman’s menopause symptoms are particularly severe she may be offered hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This isn’t such a good thing if she has also had endometriosis as HRT basically puts estrogen back into the body, which may lead to resurgence of endometriosis. Of course, as most women with endometriosis don’t continue to have symptoms after menopause, it’s not a massive risk, but it is a risk and doctors need to be aware of this. Postmenopausal endometriosis can also be associated with some serious complications; the 80 year old woman mentioned above also developed a malignant endometrioid carcinoma; other complications which have been reported include: kidney failure associated with postmenopausal deeply infiltrating endometriosis, bowel obstruction, liver damage and a general increase in risk of malignant transformation of ovarian endometriosis (although solid evidence of the latter is lacking).
Therefore, it is important for all women who have gone through the menopause (either naturally or through surgery) and have endometriosis to be aware of any recurrence of symptoms, especially if they are also undergoing HRT.
