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Polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder affecting as many as one in eight women, has a new name: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS. It’s a change that comes from decades of research into the condition, as well as a dedicated, international push to improve understanding and recognition of its effects.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.“Renaming this condition is more than semantics,” said Melanie Cree, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz and one of more than a dozen experts involved in the name change, in a statement released by the university. “It’s about finally recognizing the full reality of what patients experience.”
“Language matters in medicine,” Cree said. “The previous name often led to misconceptions and stigma, particularly around fertility. This change helps shift the conversation toward overall health rather than a single aspect of the condition.”
What is polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome?
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) – or, to use its new name, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) – is one of those diseases that you only get diagnosed with as a last resort. There’s no single “test” for it, exactly: it’s more a description of a collection of symptoms with no other explanation.
“The condition is diagnosed based on adults […] meeting at least two of the following International Guideline criteria: (1) oligo-anovulation, (2) clinical or biochemical hyperandrogenism, and (3) polycystic ovaries on ultrasound or elevated anti-Müllerian hormone,” explains the new paper outlining the rationale for the name change. “Adolescents (aged 10–19 years) require the presence of the first two criteria.”
In simpler terms, this means disordered ovulation – whether infrequent or irregular, or absent entirely – often experienced as missed periods despite no pregnancy; higher levels than normal of “male” hormones in the body, which can be diagnosed either clinically, through symptoms like excess body hair, acne and oily skin, male pattern baldness, and so on, or biochemically, with a blood test; and the presence of small, fluid-filled sacs in your ovaries that ought to release eggs but, due to being underdeveloped, often can’t.
Now, already we’re seeing one reason for the update. Despite it being right there in the name of the condition, “there is actually no increase in abnormal cysts on the ovary,” explained Helena Teede, Director of the Monash Centre for Health Research & Implementation, an endocrinologist at Monash Health, and the professor who led the name change process, in a statement released by Monash University.
In fact, the condition isn’t primarily gynecological at all. “This is a much broader condition,” Teede told The Guardian; one whose effects “are virtually all endocrine – hormonal.”
The history of “polycystic ovary syndrome”
People have been suffering from the condition now known as PMOS for as long as there’s been a human race. Longer, in fact: rhesus macaques can also get it, suggesting to some experts that there’s an evolutionary benefit to developing the condition.
On an individual level, however, it can be highly distressing. The first clinical description of PMOS – not the probable cases from the 18th century or antiquity – comes from the mid-19th century, when French doctor Achille Chereau described an “acute ovaritis of the first degree” in which “ovaries are enlarged in volume, elastic, […] with smooth and shiny surface, containing many small cysts […] located on the periphery of the organ”.
About 50 years later, a group of doctors published a case report of a “cystic form of chronic oophoritis”, a term that would join chronic ovaritis as a common name for the condition until the mid-1930s. This 1895 report was notable for mentioning a link to amenorrhea – that is, missing menstrual periods – and infertility, but that detail would be mostly forgotten for the next half-century or so.
Slowly – and boy do we mean slowly; this is a female-specific disease, after all – researchers and doctors started to unravel some of the nuances of the condition. Now, we know that PMOS is a complex metabolic and hormonal disease, strongly associated with insulin resistance and diabetes and impacting a wide range of body systems.
It can be profoundly distressing to live with, impacting your health, weight, fertility, and appearance in ways you may dislike or hate. And yet, partly because of that misleading name, “the diverse features of the condition were often unappreciated,” said Teede in the Monash statement.
“While Monash-led international guidelines have advanced awareness and care,” she said, “a name change was the next critical step towards recognition and improvement in the long term impacts of [PMOS].”
What’s in a name?
For all of these reasons, academics and clinicians have been arguing for an update to the terminology for decades. But this week’s news is not just important from a clinical and diagnostic viewpoint – it’s also good for patients, who can often be confused or dissatisfied by the limited description and focus of the condition’s name.
And, rather unusually for an update to medical nomenclature, it was they who were actually the ones pushing for the change in the first place. “[This is] not just an idea from a few experts, which is how it used to happen,” Teede told The Guardian. “We used to never consider patient perspectives when we changed the name.”
The adoption of “polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome”, however, comes in part from the perspectives of thousands of people diagnosed with the condition – as well as thousands more from doctors and other health professionals. “The efforts here are unprecedented,” Teede said. “Nobody’s put this much effort into a name change ever.”
To make sure a diverse range of voices were heard, multiple workshops were held online, with respondents from people around the world. “It was essential that the new name was scientifically correct but also considered across diverse cultural contexts,” explained Terhi Piltonen, an international co-lead from Oulu University and Oulu University Hospital, Finland, in the statement from Monash – for example, “to avoid certain reproductive terms that could heighten stigma and be harmful for women in some countries.”
“This made a culturally and internationally informed consultation critical to getting it right,” Piltonen said.
When to expect the changeover
Teede officially announced the new name on May 12, at the 28th European Congress of Endocrinology in Prague, but it won’t be fully implemented until 2028. That’s when the International Guidelines, already used in 195 countries, are set to be updated.
Until then, a detailed implementation plan has already been deployed, with the team behind the name change aiming to disseminate academic and clinical literature and engage international bodies such as the World Health Organization. With the new name, the researchers hope to clarify a long-underappreciated and misunderstood illness, providing clarity for patients and professionals alike.
“What makes this effort especially powerful is that it reflects the voices of thousands of patients and clinicians from around the world,” said Cree. “This renaming sets the foundation for meaningful change, from medical education to clinical guidelines to public awareness, and ultimately, better outcomes for patient care.”
The paper detailing the name change is published in The Lancet.
