Endometriosis risk is associated with shorter anogenital distance by meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Anogenital distance is a well-validated marker of prenatal testosterone, with shorter distances indicating lower levels during early gestation. A suite of studies has linked anogenital distance with risk of endometriosis, but the findings are variable, leading to uncertainty in interpretation. The relationship of anogenital distance with endometriosis is especially important because lower testosterone has been associated with endometriosis in recent Mendelian Randomization studies, which implies causality in the association, with direct implications for future research and treatment. Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted on the association of endometriosis with anogenital distance. Three databases were queried in the identification phase, and a random-effects meta-analysis was applied to the data in studies that met the inclusion criteria. Results Shorter anogenital distance AF, measured from the anus to the posterior fourchette, was significantly associated with higher risk of endometriosis in the meta-analysis. By contrast, there was no such association for anogenital distance AC, measured from the anus to the clitoral surface. Both analyses demonstrated significant heterogeneity across studies. Too few studies were available for robust investigation of publication bias. Conclusions The association of short anogenital distance with endometriosis risk provides support for the hypothesis that endometriosis represents, in part, a disorder mediated by relatively low testosterone levels in early prenatal development. This conclusions has notable implications for understanding the causes and treatment of endometriosis.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.014 | 0.035 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.011 | 0.047 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".