Table 1.

Experimental studies of melatonin for endometriosis.

Studies	Study Type	Study Sample Specie	Models/Methods	Dose	Route	Duration	Results	Mechanism
Guney 2008 [58]	Animal in vivo	rats	Endometrium fragments sutured to the abdominal wall	10 mg/kg daily	ip	4 weeks	Decreased lesion sizes and weight	Increased SOD, CAT Decreased MDA, COX-2
Paul 2008 [59]	Animal in vivo	mice	Intraperitoneal transplantation	48 mg/kg daily	ip	10 or 20 days	/	Increased TIMP-1 Decreased MMP-9
Paul 2010 [60]	Animal in vivo	mice	Intraperitoneal transplantation	48 mg/kg daily	ip	10 or 20 days	/	Increased TIMP-3 Decreased MMP3
Yildirim 2010 [61]	Animal in vivo	rats	Endometrium fragments sutured to the abdominal wall	10 mg/kg daily	ip	2 weeks	Decreased lesion sizes Decreased histopathologic scores	Increased SOD, CAT
Koc 2010 [62]	Animal in vivo	rats	Endometrium fragments sutured to the abdominal wall	10 mg/kg daily	ip	4 weeks	Decreased histopathologic score	Increased SOD, CAT Decreased MDA
Kocadal 2013 [63]	Animal in vivo	rats	Intraperitoneal transplantation	20 mg/kg daily	im and ip	2 weeks	Decreased lesion sizes Decreased histopathologic score	/
Yilmaz 2015 [51]	Animal in vivo	rats	Endometrium fragments sutured to the abdominal wall	10 mg/kg daily	ip	4 weeks	Decreased lesion weight Decreased histopathologic scores	Increased SOD, MDA, TIMP-2 Decreased VEGF, MMP-9
Cetinkaya 2015 [50]	Animal in vivo	rats	Endometrium fragments sutured to the abdominal wall	10 or 20 mg/kg daily	im and ip	2 weeks	Decreased lesion sizes in both treatment groups without significant difference	/
Shasha 2018 [64]	Cell in vitro	human	Endometriotic eutopic epithelial cell culture	1 mM	culture medium	72 h	/	Increased Numb, E-cadherin Decreased migration, invasion and Notch1, Vimentin, Slug, Snail

ip, Intraperitoneal injection; im, Intramuscular injection; SOD, Superoxide dismutase; CAT, Catalase; MDA, Malondialdehyde; COX-2, Cyclooxygenase 2; TIMP, Tissue inhibitors of metalloprotease; MMP, Matrix metalloproteinase; VEGF, Vascular endothelial growth factor.