Research at the University of Oxford, UK, has found a potential new way to fight endometriosis – a disease that causes pain, inflammation and infertility in women.

Currently hormonal or surgical treatments are used for this disease, which affects one in 10 women, but it is hoped a non-hormonal therapy can be developed that has fewer side effects.

The Oxford team carried out genetic analyses of rhesus macaques with endometriosis – as they develop the condition naturally – and human patients and identified a gene (NPSR1) associated with the disease.

The findings, published in the Science Translational Medicine journal, showed that, in mouse models (that don’t naturally develop the condition), a drug that inhibits the NPSR1 gene led to a reduction of inflammation and pain.

Further studies in monkeys are now needed, but the findings give hope for a non-hormonal treatment for endometriosis.