We studied the expression of oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes in human endometriosis in a retrospective pilot study. Sixteen patients with histologically verified pelvic endometriosis at the university-based tertiary care referral center were studied. Immunohistochemical determination of c-myc, c-erb-B2, nm23 and p53 expression in archival, paraffin-embedded pathological samples were used from patients operated upon for pelvic endometriosis. c-myc was expressed in 8/15 cases (53.3%). nm23 was expressed in 7/16 cases (43.7%). c-erb-B2 and p53 reactivity was undetectable in the samples studied. The c-myc oncogene and nm23 are overexpressed in many cases of endometriosis, and may play a still undefined role in its pathogenesis. Immuno-histochemistry is a useful tool for the study of oncogenic activation in this disease.

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