PCOS Is Now PMOS: This Name Change Is One Giant Leap For Womankind

What’s in a name? By which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet? Perhaps Shakespeare and literature can allow that, but in science, every word—how accurate each one is—is crucial, because a misnomer can lead to stigma, delay in care, and, worse, misdiagnosis.

This is exactly what is happening, ironically, to one of the most common hormonal disorders: PCOS, or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which affects at least one in eight women worldwide. The announcement was made in The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, where the condition was renamed Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS)  after a global consensus of over 50 patient and medical organizations. 

To qualify previously as PCOS, the condition should meet at least two of the following: oligo-anovulation, or the infrequent release of eggs in the ovary; hyperandrogenism, which means there are higher levels of androgen in the body and, according to the World Health Organization, is the cause of irregular menstrual periods for PCOS patients; and lastly, the presence of polycystic ovaries.

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PMOS is a multi-factorial hormonal condition

However, the name PCOS places emphasis on the ovarian aspect and on cysts, when in reality the disease is multifactorial in nature. Its possible features are wide-ranging, but they do not all manifest at once in a single patient. These may include metabolic disorders such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension; reproductive issues such as irregular menstrual cycles and pregnancy complications; dermatological manifestations such as acne and alopecia; and psychological impacts linked to depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.

And this is a huge deal because the neglect of all these features, aside from the reproductive aspect, leads to delayed diagnosis, which, according to the WHO, leaves 70% of affected individuals undiagnosed.

It took a concerted global effort to make PMOS official

For 14 years, there has been a sustained push to change the name of the condition—and at the forefront of that movement was a woman. Professor Helena Teede, director of Monash University’s Monash Centre for Health Research & Implementation and an endocrinologist at Monash Health, spearheaded the renaming effort after decades of researching PCOS and witnessing firsthand its impact on patients.

What followed was one of the biggest international health policy efforts ever done for renaming. According to the press release of Endocrine Society,it took over 22,000 survey responses, workshops and continuous collaborations not just among health professionals but also including patients themselves. Together, the new name was made not just to be scientifically accurate but also culturally sensitive and less stigmatizing, because the old name PCOS can fuel stigma in many cultures where fertility remains a sensitive issue, including the Philippines.

What will the new name PMOS mean for women around the world?

The result? PMOS now reflects the true nature and scope of the condition—how complex it actually is—instead of reducing everything to the catch-all term “ovarian cysts,” which The Lancet emphasizes, despite abnormal follicular development in patients with this condition, there is no increase in abnormal cysts. For the longest time, we have misplaced the blame on cysts that many patients do not even have, and that’s about to change.

The transition to the new name will take place over the next three years, supported by education and awareness campaigns. And for more than 170 million women affected by PMOS, this renaming is more than just about words—it signals a larger reckoning, a big step in the right direction, in which women’s health is now more accurately defined, openly discussed, and properly diagnosed.