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The rename is expected to better reflect the condition's hormonal and metabolic features, moving away from a long-criticised focus on ovarian cysts.
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, widely known as PCOS, will now be called Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS). This is following an international name-change process led by Professor Helena Teede, Director of Monash University’s Monash Centre for Health Research & Implementation and an endocrinologist at Monash Health, who has spent decades researching the condition and seeing the patient impact first-hand.
The change, which took 14 years of global collaboration between experts and those with lived experience, is intended to address longstanding concerns that the previous name placed too much emphasis on ovarian cysts, despite the condition involving a much broader range of endocrine and metabolic symptoms.
Professor Helena Teede shared: “What we now know is that there is actually no increase in abnormal cysts on the ovary, and the diverse features of the condition were often unappreciated."
She added:
“While international guidelines have advanced awareness and care, a name change was the next critical step towards recognition and improvement in the long-term impacts of this condition.”
PMOS affects an estimated one in eight women, or more than 170mn women worldwide. It involves hormone fluctuations and may affect weight, metabolism, mental health, skin and reproductive health.
On the name change process, Professor Teede led the work with an international group of clinical, academic and lived-experience experts, including Professor Terhi Piltonen, President of the International Androgen Excess and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Society and a co-lead from Oulu University and Oulu University Hospital in Finland; AE-PCOS Society Executive Director Anuja Dokras from the US; and Rachel Morman, Chair of Verity, also known as PCOS UK.
The process also involved 56 patient and professional organisations, including the Society for Endocrinology.
The new name is expected to be fully implemented in the 2028 International Guideline update.
READ MORE: Beyond motherhood: The unseen fertility struggles of working women
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