OBJECTIVES: Endometriosis is a gynecological disease that affects the quality of life of women of reproductive age and is costly to treat. The purpose of the review was to determine if early detection of endometriosis reduces the costs and increases the effectiveness of endometriosis treatment. METHODS: We systematically reviewed studies published from 1996 to 2012.  We evaluated two interventions (medical & surgical) of endometriosis with two outcomes (reduced costs & increased success/reduced recurrence time). We compared the outcomes of early (minimal & mild) and late (moderate & severe) stage interventions of endometriosis by summarizing the studies and listing their relative main outcomes. We also assessed the quality of the studies by checking (yes or no) whether they conducted a sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: Seven studies met the inclusion criteria of enrolling patients suffering from endometriosis and reporting costs and effects relating to detection and treatment of early and late stage of endometriosis. Early stage interventions are less costly and more effective but only two studies conducted a sensitivity analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that early detection of endometriosis improves the outcomes of endometriosis treatment (both medical and surgical) but there are limitations to these findings. The methodological structure of the studies was not conformed to analytical robustness and therefore affected the quality of results and outcomes reported. This validates the World Endometriosis Research Foundation’s recommendation for more high-quality studies on the economic evaluation of endometriosis.