A meeting called the “Colombian Expert Consensus Regarding Endometriosis” was held in May 2012 within the framework of the 28^th Colombian Obstetrics and Gynaecology Congress in Cartagena de Indias. Members of the Fecolsog chapter of Gynaecological Endoscopy attended this meeting; there were known specialists from regions of Colombia who are experts on the topic and international professors who were lecturing on this disease, including Dr Liliana Mereu (Italy), Dr Mauricio Abrao (Brazil), Dr Francisco Carmona (Spain) and Dr John Steege (USA). The aforementioned meeting was designed to deal with a single academic topic, “Managing deep infiltrating endometriosis in Colombia.”

Discussion during this meeting led to a consensus document endorsed by participants being produced, entitled, “Why should deep infiltrating endometriosis be considered a different disease to peritoneal endometriosis?” This document tried to establish a position on such specific topic and inform specialists about this especially challenging and complex pathology afflicting many patients in practice.

Several conclusions and recommendations arose from this meeting; the following are worth highlighting:

• Deep infiltrating endometriosis is a different entity to peritoneal or ovarian endometriosis.

• Its diagnosis and therapeutic and surgical approach differ ostensibly from that adopted for the peritoneal disease.

• The surgery required for suitably managing patients suffering from deep infiltrating endometriosis consists of procedures catalogued around the world as being of high complexity, having considerable intra- and post-operatory morbidity. These should preferably be carried out by laparoscopy, in reference centres, often with the assistance of other specialisations.

• Such surgery is not homologous regarding surgical risk, complexity, the need for equipment and requires other specialists with none of the procedures which were recently approved by the Colombian Health Regulation Commission (Comisión de Regulación en Salud - CRES) for the Colombian Obligatory Health Plan (Plan Obligatorio de Salud - POS).

The definitive document on this particular topic is being published in our journal Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecología today and we would like to share it with all the readers of this issue.

Juan Diego Villegas-Echeverri, MD

President Fecolsog, 2012-2014