A Newly Discovered Disease Affecting Women's Physical and Mental Health: Research Status and Expert Consensus Interpretation of Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder

Abstract

Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) and genito-pelvic dysesthesia (GPD) are jointly known as PGAD/GPD, which is a newly discovered condition in recent years, featured by spontaneous or secondary persistent genital arousal and/or dysesthesia in the genital and pelvic areas. PGAD/GPD mainly affects women, which can seriously influence the physical and mental health of the sufferers due to the specificity of its symptoms. Most patients have anxiety, depression, and even the suicidal tendency. The medical community abroad has paid attention to PGAD/GPD, and included it in the International Classification of Diseases-11th Revision (ICD-11) . Given the fact that this newly discovered condition is under-recognized among domestic health providers at present, we summarized the current research on PGAD/GPD abroad and introduced the epidemiological characteristics, pathophysiological mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment methods of PGAD/GPD based on the review of the latest expert consensus of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health (ISSWSH) , and discussed the future research direction of PGAD/GPD and the coping strategies that should be taken by the domestic medical community, with a view to arousing medical workers' attention to the disease in China.

Keywords

• genitalia, female|sensation disorders|persistent genital arousal disorder/genito-pelvic dysesthesia|female mental and physical health|pathophysiological mechanism|diagnosis and treatment|expert consensus