Thoracic endometriosis syndrome
Thoracic endometriosis syndrome: a review of diagnosis and treatment is a review study done by Nezhat et al., focusing on thoracic endometriosis syndrome. Thoracic endometriosis is endometriosis found within the lung parenchyma or on the pleural surface. Some studies mention endometriosis on the diaphragm as part of the thoracic endometriosis as well.
Thoracic endometriosis syndrome consists of a range of clinical manifestations such as catamenial pneumothorax, hemothorax, hemoptysis, and pulmonary nodules. The review mentioned above concluded that thoracic endometriosis syndrome can cause incapacitating symptoms for some patients. Symptoms are nonspecific, so a high degree of clinical suspicion is warranted.
Based on the article 12% of endometriosis patients have extragenital endometriosis with endometriosis within the thoracic cavity being the most common site of endometriosis outside of the abdominopelvic cavity.
Thoracic Endometriosis Syndrome Other Than Pneumothorax: Clinical and Pathological Findings is a review of various records all consecutive women of reproductive age referred to an hospital in France from September 2001 to August 2016 for clinically suspected thoracic endometriosis syndrome. The aim of the review was to identify other clinical signs than pneumothorax as part of the thoracic endometriosis syndrome. The signs identified by Bobbio et al. proposed expanding this classic definition of TES to include endometriosis-related diaphragmatic hernia, catamenial chest pain, and endometriosis-related pleural effusion.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29054304/
With regards to symptoms, an analysis done on 110 cases of thoracic endometriosis show that patients developed symptoms of thoracic endometriosis, 5-7 years after they developed pelvic endometriosis symptoms.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8629650/
In the review done by Nezhat et al., the authors mention that many patients with thoracic endometriosis are asymptomatic and although symptoms occur around menstruation, there are cases when symptomes occurred before menstruation, during the periovulatory period, and following intercourse.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6684338/#B8