news about pcos today
Decades-long campaign powered by patient perspectives results in switch from PCOS – a name that caused confusion and undue suffering – to PM
a health policy paper has been published saying the name is officially updated to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)
polyendocrine= multiple endocrine factors
metabolic = affecting/affected by metabolism
ovarian = from the ovaries
essentially, instead of using the symptomatic term (many people with PMOS do not develop cysts) the new term widens the diagnostic area and makes it easier to diagnose, treat, and do research on people with PMOS (even atypical types, such as no cysts).
it may seem like a waste of time to change a name instead of focusing on research, but for a lot of medical professionals a name can be associated with a hard set collection of symptoms, so the name needs to change to acknowledge that the disorder is not well understood and has a broader, subtler, and often missed set of symptoms. for example ADD is considered an antiquated/unused term, and now comes under the ADHD umbrella. in healthcare names and terminology changes all the time, and this is a positive change. your local healthcare professional may not know about this unless theyre really up on the news though!
in case you want to read about the name change process that was published in the Lancet (one of the most impactful and well respected medical journals):
Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), previously named polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), affects one in eight women. However, the
