DUBAI // Endometriosis affects many women in the country, but awareness about the chronic disease is low, experts say.
Dubai Health Authority, Latifa and Dubai hospitals and Bayer HealthCare, as well as the group ExpatWomen, organised a march and awareness campaign on Thursday to educate people about the gynaecological condition, which usually affects girls and women of reproductive age.
Endometriosis involves cells from the lining of the uterus spreading to other parts of the body, such as the pelvic area and, in rare cases, even the lungs or the brain. The disease could affect as many as one woman in 10, experts have said, with a wide range of symptoms.
“The thing which is peculiar about the disease is that we do not know what causes it. What makes one woman have it while the other does not?” said Ghassan Lotfi, consultant in gynaecological and laparoscopic surgery at Latifa Hospital.
Endometriosis can cause chronic pelvic pain and infertility, and some women may want surgery to remove the growths and alleviate the pain, Dr Lotfi said. About 40 per cent of women with endometriosis may have fertility problems and 3 per cent to 7 per cent have severe, “deep invasive” cases that penetrate other organs.
Other countries have support groups for patients and families, Dr Lotfi said, adding that he would like to see something similar in the UAE.
“What we are trying to do first is spread awareness about the symptoms,” he said. These may include pain in the lower abdomen or pelvis during menstrual periods, infertility and irregular bleeding.
“Unfortunately there is no specific screening method for it. That’s why it’s important to know the symptoms,” Dr Lotfi said.
Usually the disease is diagnosed through imaging tests, he said. But it “behaves very erratically”, and it is difficult to determine a type of person who is more likely to have the disease.
A woman could come to the hospital for sudden pain, where a doctor, suspecting that she has appendicitis, sees a “frozen pelvis”, Dr Lotfi said – “when the disease has done so much damage that you no longer see the organs in the benign form”.
The Dubai event coincides with a global awareness campaign and the Million Women March for Endometriosis in Washington, DC. A non-profit group, the Nezhat Family Foundation, organised the global campaign.
lcarroll@thenational.ae