Guangdong Provincial Endometriosis Clinical Research Cohort

Overview

Endometriosis is a chronic condition that may cause pelvic pain, ovarian cysts, infertility, and recurrent symptoms. This prospective observational cohort study will enroll women aged 18 to 45 years with endometriosis and age- and body mass index-matched healthy women. Participants will receive routine clinical care, and the study will not assign medications or procedures. Baseline clinical information will be collected, and participants will be followed for 24 months, every 3 months during the first year and every 6 months thereafter. The study will assess cyst recurrence, pain recurrence, pregnancy and live birth outcomes, and other long-term clinical outcomes. It will also evaluate associations between disease characteristics, rASRM stage, routine medical treatment, and subsequent clinical and reproductive outcomes, and will support the establishment of an endometriosis clinical research database.

This is a prospective observational cohort study designed to characterize the clinical course and reproductive outcomes of women with endometriosis. The study will prospectively enroll women aged 18 to 45 years with a clinical, imaging, or surgical diagnosis of endometriosis. Age- and body mass index-matched healthy women with regular menstrual cycles may also be enrolled as a control cohort. Baseline data will include demographic characteristics, reproductive history, lifestyle factors, clinical symptoms, pain scores, disease phenotype, lesion characteristics, rASRM stage, previous surgery, laboratory findings, ovarian reserve indicators, and assisted reproductive treatment information, when applicable. Treatments received as part of routine clinical care, including gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists and progestogens, will be recorded as observational exposures. The study protocol will not assign participants to a specific medication, procedure, or assisted reproductive treatment. Participants will be followed for 24 months. Follow-up assessments will be conducted every 3 months during the first year and every 6 months thereafter, with clinically important outcome events recorded when they occur. Outcomes of interest include cyst recurrence, pain recurrence, pregnancy outcomes, live birth, and other long-term clinical complications. Associations between baseline clinical characteristics, disease severity, routine treatment patterns, and subsequent outcomes will be evaluated using appropriate descriptive and multivariable statistical methods. Time-to-event outcomes may be analyzed using Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox proportional hazards regression, with adjustment for potential confounding factors.