Does endometriosis run in the family?

While we don’t yet know what causes endometriosis, research has shown that someone is likely to have the disease if their genetic mother or sibling has the disease.

A pie chart showing that 72.8% of endometriosis patients have a relative with endometriosis — 72.8% of endometriosis patients who responded to our survey have at least one relative with endometriosis.

When we asked endometriosis patients “Do you have a relative with endometriosis?” 72.8% of respondents said yes. 15.4% said that either their mother or sister had endometriosis and a further 57.4% said that another relative had endometriosis.