Apoptosis and expression of Bcl-2 and Bax in eutopic endometrium from women with endometriosis

Endometriosis and the neoplastic process

“…Similarly, endometriotic lesions have also evolved strategies to evade apoptosis by: (i) increased Bcl-2, and decreased BAX (Meresman et al 2000); (ii) upregulation of survivin and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) (Ria et al 2002, Ueda et al 2002a; (iii) elevated soluble Fas ligand (FasL) and interleukin (IL)-8 in endometriotic peritoneal fluid (the increased FasL expression by IL-8 may induce apoptosis of T lymphocytes and thus enable endometriosis to evade immune-mediated cell death (Garcia-Velasco et al 2002)); and (iv) germline (Chang et al 2002) and somatically acquired (Bischoff et al 2002) inactivating mutations of p53 gene.…”

The Local Immune Mechanisms Involved in the Formation of Endometriotic Lesions

“…It was found, that the percentage of apoptosis in sloughed endometrial cells was greatly reduced among women with endometriosis, implying that the number of surviving cells that enter the peritoneal cavity is greater in women who develop endometriosis (Harada et al, 2004). An increased expression of anti-apoptotic factor Bcl-2 and decrease expression of pro-apoptotic factor Bax were found in proliferative eutopic endometrium from women with endometriosis (Meresman et al, 2000). These differences could contribute to the survival of regurgitating endometrial cells into the peritoneal cavity and development of endometriosis (Taniguchi 2011).…”

Medical Treatment in Endometriosis

“…Oral combined contraceptive pills induce atrophy in peritoneal endometriotic implants by initial decidualization effect like a pseudo pregnancy situation; perhaps they could increase the apoptosis in endometriotic implants (Meresman etal , 2000). OCPs are the most prescripted drugs in endometriosis, especially in minimal and mild stages of disease for pain control ; although there is a new report about the effectiveness of OCPs usage in patients with deep endometriotic nodules (advance stage) (Mabrouk etal,2011) ,which eliminate the effectiveness of OCPs administration only in early stages of disease.…”