{"id":668824,"date":"2026-05-14T11:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668824\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:52:12","slug":"pcos-a-condition-that-affects-1-in-10-canadian-women-is-being-renamed-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668824\/","title":{"rendered":"PCOS, a condition that affects 1 in 10 Canadian women, is being renamed – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a chronic hormonal condition that impacts one in 10 Canadian women, is being renamed to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome<\/a> (PMOS).<\/p>\n

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The announcement was published in the Lancet<\/a>, which states that the condition affects 170 million women during their reproductive years alone.<\/p>\n

The condition can cause a range of symptoms, such as irregular or disrupted menstrual cycles, infertility, excessive facial hair and mental health issues, and \u201chas multisystem health impacts and represents a growing health and economic burden.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Endocrine Society, one of more than 50 patient and professional organizations that took part in the process to create the new name, said in a press release<\/a> that PMOS is \u201ccharacterized by fluctuations in hormones, with impacts on weight, metabolic and mental health, skin, and the reproductive system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, the name reduced a complex, long-term hormonal or endocrine disorder to a misunderstanding about \u2018cysts\u2019 and a focus on ovaries. This contributed to missed diagnoses and inadequate treatment,\u201d according to the press release.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tWhy was the name changed needed?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Dr. Roland Antaki, chief of the reproductive endocrinology and fertility division at\u00a0the University of Montreal\u2019s CHUM hospital, said the name change has been \u201coverdue for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old name comes from 1935,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the time, there were no ultrasounds, they [doctors] didn\u2019t have many testing, they did surgery on patients, and they found big ovaries and they thought those were cysts, so they called it polycystic ovary syndrome, and the name survived all that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut we know since then that those are not cysts. What we see on the ovaries of many patients with PMOS are follicles, so it\u2019s what contains the egg, and those are well-working follicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As a result, these factors contribute to delayed diagnoses, with \u201cup to 70 per cent of affected individuals remaining undiagnosed \u2014 and also contribute to widespread knowledge gaps and patient dissatisfaction,\u201d according to the Lancet.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s very important for the patient and for the medical community to have a name that reflects the impact of that syndrome,\u201d Antaki said.<\/p>\n

He also estimated that it can take more than 10 years before the change from PCOS to PMOS is actualized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of books written on that [PCOS], you have a lot of publications on PCOS, we have websites, support groups that have PCOS in the name and to make all those changes, it will be a very long process, even in the medical community.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Antaki has hope that it can occur sooner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, people will forget about the C, because that is the issue and put more emphasis on the other parts of the syndrome,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that is here to last.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a chronic hormonal condition that impacts one in 10 Canadian women, is being renamed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84,78889,246650,88395,246651],"class_list":["post-668824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-pcos","tag-pmos","tag-polycystic-ovary-syndrome","tag-polyendocrine-metabolic-ovarian-syndrome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}