Gabija Didžiokaitė / From personal archives.
The article entitled “Oxidative Stress as a Potential Underlying Cause of Minimal and Mild Endometriosis-Related Infertility” became one of the most widely read articles of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2023. It was written by a team of researchers at the Faculty of Medicine in Vilnius University: Gabija Didžiokaitė, a PhD student, Gabija Biliūtė and Jogailė Gudaitė, residents, and Professor Violeta Kvedarienė. The article received 2,639 hits last year. The article is part of a PhD thesis being prepared by Didžiokaitė on the possible association of female infertility having an uncertain origin with immune and allergic factors.
The paper proposes a new hypothesis: that oxidative stress may be a cause, not just a consequence, of endometriosis. “This would explain why women with early-stage endometriosis often have difficulty conceiving, even though in the absence of endometriosis-induced adhesions in the pelvis or fallopian tubes, early-stage endometriosis per se is not currently considered a cause of infertility”, Didžiokaitė said. According to the hypothesis, higher levels of reactive oxygen species, which are invisible to the naked eye and caused by increased oxidative stress in a woman’s body, can negatively affect her fertility in a number of ways, as described in the article. “In this case, endometriosis could be seen as another consequence of the increase in oxidative stress in the body that could lead to an even more rapid increase in oxidative stress in the female body”, the researcher said.
According to Didžiokaitė, infertility is an extremely relevant issue in society today: more and more women are facing infertility problems, and in many cases, even after a thorough examination, the specific cause of infertility cannot be identified, and the woman is diagnosed with infertility of an uncertain origin. “This diagnosis does not allow women to take targeted further steps to conceive, so they can only be offered assisted reproductive procedures”, she said. If further research confirms the theory that endometriosis is a sign of increased oxidative stress in the body, a diagnosis of endometriosis, even in its earliest stages, could be a sign to a specialist that a woman is suffering from increased levels of oxidative stress. Then, according to Didžiokaitė, it would be possible to offer these women a more targeted approach to care to reduce the amount of reactive oxygen species in the body and the intensity of the damage they cause, which leads to infertility.
The published article can be read here.