a bacterial infection causing the disease?

The researchers took and analyzed the bacteria present in their gastrointestinal and vaginal environment and found that bacteria – Fusobacterium – proliferated in 64% of women with endometriosis, compared to only 7% in women who did not carry the disease. disease. This is the result of a study conducted on 155 women.

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To verify that this bacterium could have a link with endometriosis, the scientists even carried out tests on mice. They transplanted them with endometrium contaminated with these bacteria and within a few weeks, the mice began to suffer from lesions typical of endometriosis.

Moreover, in the last phase of their work, the researchers went even further, and it is perhaps on this that they arouse real hope. They treated the mice with antibiotics administered vaginally and after 21 days of treatment, it turned out that the symptoms had diminished.

Antibiotics?

We can imagine that tomorrow it is possible that we treat endometriosis with antibiotics. In fact, this is the whole limit of this study, even if the leads are interesting and the data are rather solid. There has not yet been a clinical trial on women to validate these results.
and nothing allows to say that the bacterium was there before the endometriosis. What looks like a cause can just as well be a consequence. Besides, we can clearly see that not all sick women have this bacterium.

The question is therefore rather: will tomorrow we be able to treat some of the women suffering from endometriosis using antibiotics? Again, an unknown remains. we do not know if it works in the long term or what dose it will be necessary to administer, or even if there is a risk that this bacterium will reappear or even become resistant to antibiotics. In short, we are still far from healing, but it is progressing.