Abstract
The endometrium is thought to serve as the precursor tissue for diseases of the uterus such as endometrial cancer, adenomyosis, and endometriosis. More specifically, endometrial glands are proposed to be the source of developing endometrial cancer within the uterine body while ectopic endometrial glands and surrounding stroma which develop within the myometrium give rise to adenomyosis, and those that establish outside of the uterus give rise to endometriosis. While adenomyosis and endometriosis are benign diseases, they do share several cellular characteristics with endometrial cancer including enhanced cell survival/proliferation, migration and invasion. Further, the pathophysiology of these diseases is driven by unopposed estrogen and each exhibit various degrees of progesterone resistance and altered downstream expression and/or function of genes relevant to epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, tissue remodeling and transcriptional signaling. In this review we summarize our current understanding on differences and similarities in major cell signaling pathways among endometrial cancer, adenomyosis and endometriosis. In closing, we emphasize the necessity for additional studies to delve deeper into common attributes in the pathophysiology of these diseases towards the goal of identifying novel, non-hormonal therapies for their treatment.
Keywords
Endometrial cancer, Adenomyosis, Endometriosis, Protease, Protease inhibitor, Tissue remodeling, Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, Steroid receptor, Transcription factor