Endometriosis and LASMIK Laser Therapy: A Non-Surgical Path to Symptom Relief

Endometriosis is one of the most common — and most commonly dismissed — conditions in gynecology. It affects women of reproductive age worldwide, yet because its central symptom is pelvic pain, many women live with it for years before receiving a diagnosis, having been told that the pain is simply a normal part of the menstrual cycle.

It doesn't have to be. Endometriosis is a well-defined, treatable condition, and the range of treatment options has grown well beyond "surgery or hormones." Low-level laser therapy — delivered at EuroMed through the LASMIK system — has emerged as a meaningful non-surgical option, used both on its own for earlier-stage disease and alongside surgery for more advanced cases.

Understanding Endometriosis

What it is. Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus (the endometrium) grows outside of it — most often on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, or the tissue lining the pelvis. That tissue responds to the menstrual cycle the same way the uterine lining does, which is what produces the condition's hallmark symptom: pain that intensifies around menstruation.

It typically develops during the reproductive years, though it has been documented in adolescents before their first period and, less commonly, in postmenopausal women. Its exact prevalence is difficult to pin down for the same reason it's underdiagnosed — a meaningful share of affected women never seek care for it. The World Health Organization estimates it affects roughly 10% of women and girls of reproductive age globally [1].

Why it happens. No single cause has been established. The leading explanations — retrograde menstruation, coelomic metaplasia, local estrogen production, immune and inflammatory factors, genetic predisposition, and the role of stem cells — are active areas of research rather than settled science, and it's likely that more than one mechanism is involved.

Symptoms. The most common presentation is cyclical pelvic pain that builds before or during menstruation, though for many women the pain becomes constant. Other frequent symptoms include heavier or longer periods, pain during intercourse, pain with bowel or bladder movements in more advanced disease, and infertility. In rare cases, endometrial tissue outside the pelvis can produce symptoms that track the menstrual cycle in unexpected ways — for example, cyclical respiratory symptoms when tissue is present near the lungs.

Diagnosis. The diagnostic gold standard remains laparoscopy with histological confirmation — direct visualization combined with a tissue biopsy that confirms the diagnosis under a microscope. Disease is generally staged in four degrees, based on the extent and depth of the tissue involved.

Standard treatment — and its trade-offs. The two most established treatments are surgical removal of the tissue (typically laparoscopic) and hormone therapy to suppress the cycle that drives symptoms. Both work, and both come with real trade-offs. Hormonal treatment manages symptoms but doesn't address the underlying tissue and isn't appropriate for women trying to conceive. Surgery removes visible disease, but it isn't without cost to future fertility: research on endometrioma surgery has found measurable drops in ovarian reserve (as reflected in AMH levels) following cyst removal, and pregnancy rates after a second or third surgery tend to be lower than after a first [2]. That's why physicians increasingly try to avoid repeat surgical intervention where possible, particularly for women who hope to have children — and why there's real clinical interest in therapies that can reduce symptoms and lower relapse risk without another trip to the operating room.

Where Laser Therapy Fits

This is the gap that low-level laser therapy (LLLT) — also called photobiomodulation — is designed to fill. Rather than cutting or introducing medication, LLLT uses specific wavelengths of light to act on the body's own regulatory and repair processes at the cellular level: reducing inflammation, supporting circulation, and calming the overactive signaling that drives pelvic pain and inflammation. It introduces nothing foreign into the body — which is also what makes it unusually safe to combine with other treatment.

LASMIK's protocol for endometriosis applies the laser transvaginally and to specific points on the body, in daily or every-other-day outpatient sessions over roughly two weeks, typically timed to the second half of the menstrual cycle. Each session takes about an hour, is painless, and requires no downtime — patients return to their normal routine immediately afterward.

Published clinical data cited by LASMIK's manufacturer, drawn from a study of 169 women with genital endometriosis (109 treated with the laser protocol against a 60-patient control group receiving conventional care alone), reported meaningful improvement across several measures: reduction in core disease symptoms in 81% of treated patients, improvement in related autonomic symptoms in 67%, and improvement in psycho-emotional and neuropsychiatric measures in 74%, alongside roughly half the relapse rate of the control group [3]. A registered trial on ClinicalTrials.gov is currently evaluating transvaginal low-level laser therapy for pelvic pain and sexual function in endometriosis patients [4].

For women with earlier-stage disease (grade 1–2), laser therapy is sometimes used as a stand-alone alternative to surgery. For more advanced disease (grade 3–4), it's typically used alongside surgery — before or after — to help manage residual inflammation, support recovery, and reduce the likelihood of complications, rather than in place of surgical treatment where surgery is indicated. As with any therapy, individual response varies, and the right approach depends on disease stage, symptoms, and fertility goals — which is why this is a decision made with a physician, not a one-size-fits-all protocol.

About LASMIK

Low-level laser therapy has been developed and studied in Russia for several decades, building on a large body of clinical and technical work led by Russian laser medicine researchers, including Dr. Sergey Moskvin — whose work on the field's clinical history and methodology has been published in peer-reviewed journals internationally [5]. The LASMIK and Matrix devices used in this protocol are manufactured by Russia's Matrix Research Center, which has produced laser therapy equipment for gynecology, urology, neurology, dentistry, and other specialties for more than two decades, and which trains and certifies the physicians who use it.

EuroMed was the first clinic in North America to obtain rights to LASMIK's patented treatment protocols, with physicians trained and certified directly through Matrix's research center. Beyond endometriosis, the same device is used in gynecology for conditions including IVF preparation, pelvic adhesions, post-surgical recovery, menstrual disorders, ovarian dysfunction, and recurrent vaginal infections, always as part of a physician-directed treatment plan.

Where It Fits Responsibly

Laser therapy is not a replacement for a proper diagnosis or for surgery when surgery is genuinely indicated — an endometrioma that's compressing an ovary or a case with significant anatomical distortion still needs a surgeon's judgment. What LASMIK offers is a lower-risk option earlier in the treatment path, and a supportive option around surgery when surgery is needed, with the goal of reducing how often a patient has to choose between living with symptoms and undergoing another operation.

Every case is different, and the right combination of treatments should be reviewed individually with a gynecologist who knows the patient's history, disease stage, and goals — including whether future fertility is a priority.

LASMIK laser therapy for endometriosis is available at EuroMed as part of a physician-directed treatment plan. To find out whether it may be a fit for your situation, speak with your EuroMed concierge coordinator.

Sources 

[1] World Health Organization. "Endometriosis." Fact sheet, updated 2024. who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/endometriosis

[2] Fertility Science and Research. "Endometriosis Surgery and Fertility Outcomes: An Evidence-Based Review." fertilityscienceresearch.org/endometriosis-surgery-and-fertility-outcomes-an-evidence-based-review

[3] Fedorova T.A., Moskvin S.V., Apolikhina I.A. "Laser Therapy in Obstetrics and Gynecology" [Лазерная терапия в акушерстве и гинекологии], Moscow, 2009.

[4] ClinicalTrials.gov. "Transvaginal Low-level Laser Therapy to Improve Pelvic Pain and Sexual Function in Patients with Endometriosis." NCT05540353. clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05540353.

[5] Moskvin S.V. "Low-Level Laser Therapy in Russia: History, Science and Practice." Journal of Lasers in Medical Sciences, 2017;8(2):56–65. PMID 28652897.