The call for greater attention to women’s health has finally been heard, as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been officially renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS).
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition characterised by the presence of cysts on an individual’s ovaries, has now been renamed, following a decade-long campaign by researchers, clinicians and patient advocacy groups.
The name change, published in The Lancet, was announced at the European Congress of Endocrinology in Prague this week, after 14 years of collaborative efforts between international societies and patient groups across six continents.
Effective immediately, the condition will now be called PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome), with the aim of providing a more accurate and less misleading framework for understanding the disorder.
Why has PCOS been renamed?
Previously, a diagnosis of PCOS might be given if an individual experienced symptoms such as irregular periods, acne, excessive hair growth, excess androgen (male hormone) levels and polycystic ovaries visible on an ultrasound.
However, this approach has proven misleading, because not everyone with PCOS has polycystic ovaries, and some people have ovarian cysts without having the syndrome. Overemphasising the presence of cysts on the ovaries fails to reflect the metabolic issues central to the condition, such as insulin resistance, weight control issues or metabolic complications.
The old terminology could also be stigmatising for people assigned female at birth who don’t identify as a woman but still experience the condition.
Misconceptions around the condition — by both patients and healthcare professionals — lead to fear or incorrect assumptions. For example, the erroneous belief, that women with PCOS can never conceive, which many have been told by GPs and specialists, only to later discover isn’t true.
“Thinking of it as a fertility or skin problem has always been an oversimplification,” says Dr Lucy Hooper, private GP and co-founder of Coyne Medical. “The renaming is an attempt to correct that framing at source.”
Crucially, it helps rectify the misconception that it’s solely a gynaecological disorder. Instead, it’s a complex endocrine and metabolic disorder with implications for long-term health, including risks for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, the liver, the gut microbiome, mental health and certain cancers.
“It’s not that the ovaries don’t play a part — it’s that the original name implied the condition was primarily structural and reproductive, centred on the appearance of the ovaries on an ultrasound,” explains Dr Lucy. “We now understand it’s fundamentally a metabolic condition with reproductive consequences, not the other way around.”
Can renaming the condition help with diagnosis?
While a name alone can’t solve everything, intimate health and hormone health expert Dr Shirin Lakhani is optimistic.
“Renaming the condition helps validate what many women have experienced for years. People may not realise they’re suffering from PMOS because clinicians miss it while looking for ovarian cysts,” she says.
Diagnosis is also currently delayed partly because the symptoms that bring women to a clinician, such as acne, hair changes and irregular cycles, are often dismissed as normal, particularly in younger women and adolescents.
Read more: ‘I thought I was going to die’ — meet the women misdiagnosed with PMOS
“Bringing more awareness to the complexity around the condition, increasing clinician awareness and reducing over-reliance on ultrasound findings can lead to more diagnoses,” adds Dr Shirin.
There are also diagnostic criteria that vary between guidelines, and features such as insulin resistance are frequently not tested for at all, even though they may be present years before other complications emerge.
A name that signals metabolic involvement may prompt both clinicians and patients to think more broadly from the outset.
And early recognition matters considerably. Dr Lucy says: “Adolescents who meet only some of the criteria for PMOS already show significantly worse metabolic profiles than their peers, including higher blood pressure, raised triglycerides and greater insulin resistance, even when they’re not overweight.”
What does this mean for women?
The most important shift will hopefully be in how the condition is managed over time. PCOS has too often been treated reactively — a problem to manage at the point of a specific complaint. For example, contraception for period irregularity, fertility treatment for those trying to conceive or topical therapies for skin symptoms.
But a multisystem framing requires a fundamentally different approach — one that looks at insulin resistance, cardiovascular risk markers, lipid profiles, blood pressure, mental wellbeing and endometrial health across a woman’s lifetime.
“A name change that embeds the metabolic dimension into the diagnosis should, over time, shift what screening looks like, what monitoring is offered and how patients understand their own long-term risk,” says Dr Lucy.
This means that symptoms such as insulin resistance, elevated inflammatory markers, changes in the gut microbiome and the darkening of skin folds, will not be overlooked so easily.
Renaming it will not automatically overhaul clinical practice completely, but language shapes how doctors think, how patients understand their health and where research funding flows.
As Dr Lucy says: “Anything that moves this condition out of the reproductive health silo and into the broader conversation about long-term preventive health is a meaningful step forward.”
Read more: Can Ozempic really help with PMOS? Promising link between weight-loss medications and hormonal health revealed
Are the symptoms of PCOS the same as PMOS?
Yes, common symptoms of PMOS (and PCOS) may include:
- Irregular periods or absent periods
- Excess androgen (e.g., acne, unwanted hair growth)
- Insulin resistance, weight gain and metabolic syndrome
- Polycystic ovaries (not in every case)
How can PMOS be treated?
Treatment previously focused on reproductive symptoms, such as irregular periods, fertility and ovarian cysts.
Now, with more accurate and appropriate testing, treatment for PMOS can focus more heavily on lifestyle changes. These might include:
- Lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise to help manage metabolic risk
- Hormonal therapy for reproductive or androgen-related symptoms
- Regular monitoring of cardiovascular and metabolic health
Feature image: Pexels
