A campaign is being launched this week to improve the diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis, a painful disease linked to infertility.
Medical experts will raise awareness of the condition, which affects one in 10 Scottish women of childbearing age, at an event at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday.
Representatives from Endometriosis UK, academics from Edinburgh University and patients will make the case for the development of at least four specialist treatment centres.
The disease causes tissue similar to the lining of the uterus to grow elsewhere in the body, such as the pelvis, ovaries and bladder. The growths can cause inflammation and severe pain, and lead to infertility in up to 40% of those affected.
Campaigners say women in Scotland wait an average of seven years before they are diagnosed correctly and current treatments often prove ineffective and have unpleasant side effects.
Dr Andrew Horne, consultant gynaecologist at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health in Edinburgh, said: "It is fantastic that the Scottish Government are listening to medical practitioners, researchers and sufferers of endometriosis."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article