How common is the symptom Chest pain among people with endometriosis?
69,86% of people with endometriosis reported Chest pain as a symptom of endometriosis in our survey.
How common is the symptom Chest pain among people with endometriosis compared to the non-affected group?
7,68% of people with endometriosis suffer from the symptom Chest pain very strong compared to a prevalence of 3,77% among non-affected individuals.
The following table shows the symptom Chest pain in people with endometriosis compared to non-affected individuals. The scale ranges from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very strong).
| Symptom severity | Endometriosis | Non-affected | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| not at all | 30,14% | 42,14% | -12,00% |
| slightly | 17,55% | 30,19% | -12,64% |
| moderate | 25,06% | 16,98% | 8,08% |
| strong | 19,57% | 6,92% | 12,65% |
| very strong | 7,68% | 3,77% | 3,91% |
Based on the datasets, we calculated the Kendall correlation. The following symptoms could be related to Chest pain.
| Symptom name | Correlation |
|---|---|
| Shortness of breath | weak correlation (25,00%) |
| Joint pain | weak correlation (25,00%) |
| Shoulder pain | weak correlation (23,00%) |
| Limb pain | weak correlation (23,00%) |
| Dizziness | weak correlation (21,00%) |
| Kidney pain | weak correlation (21,00%) |
| Headaches / Migraine | weak correlation (20,00%) |
Chest pain is primarily associated with heart disease. And indeed, recent studies have found that if you have endometriosis, you face a markedly higher risk of cardiovascular disease than other women. In addition, chest pain can be triggered by endometriotic lesions that have formed on the lung. Thus, chest pain can be linked to endometriosis on several levels.
Endometriosis is characterized by clusters of tissue, similar to the uterine lining, growing outside the uterus. The endometriotic lesions grow and then bleed, just as the endometrium itself does. Because the blood in most cases cannot leave the body, but instead flows into the abdominal cavity or seeps into organ tissue, inflammation, adhesions, and scarring often develop there. In so-called thoracic endometriosis, the growths occur in the chest—on the pleura, diaphragm, or the lungs. Pulmonary endometriosis impairs lung function and, in addition to dyspnea, shortness of breath, and sometimes hemoptysis, also causes chest pain.
The connection between endometriosis and chest pain originating from the heart is of a different nature: Statistically, women with endometriosis have elevated levels of specific inflammatory factors and markers of oxidative stress in blood and peritoneal fluid; LDL levels are too high and HDL levels too low. These changes have adverse effects on the cardiovascular system. The study also showed that women with endometriosis have a significantly increased risk of heart disease, such as heart attacks. After menopause—when, in most cases, other symptoms of endometriosis also subside—the risk of cardiovascular disease becomes comparable to that of other women.