Imagine a condition that affects 170 million people worldwide, yet an estimated 70 percent don’t know they have it. Even those who are diagnosed are often told their symptoms are limited to one organ system, when in fact many are affected.

This is the case for polycystic ovary syndrome. Despite its prevalence — occurring in as much as 1 in 7 reproductive-age women — it remains vastly misunderstood by patients and clinicians.

A global effort to rename the condition has finally succeeded after decades of advocacy. Now, it will be known as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS. That more accurately reflects the biology behind the condition and will help women obtain more timely and appropriate treatment.

This is not the first name change for the condition, which was previously known as Stein-Leventhal syndrome after the gynecologists who first described it. That changed to PCOS in the 1990s but was always a misnomer.

Doctors used the term “polycystic” because early studies noted that some patients with the illness had a higher-than-normal number of ovarian follicles, the small fluid-filled sacs that contain developing eggs. But these are not cysts at all, and the term led many patients to believe they had abnormal growths in their ovaries and perpetuated the misconception that cysts were required for........

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