Chemokines in the pathogenesis of endometriosis and infertility

Endometriosis is a chronic benign disease that affects women of reproductive age causing abdominal pain and infertility. Its pathogenesis remains obscure despite all the research conducted over the past 100 years. However, there is a consensus among the specialists that the basis of its pathophysiology would be multifactorial. Many publications have demonstrated that chemokines are somehow associated with the development of endometriosis and infertility. In this study, we reviewed all PubMed literature using MeSH terms chemokines and endometriosis as well as chemokines and female infertility to establish what we know and what we do not yet know about this relationship. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.