LAS VEGAS – according to a survey study from the University of Pittsburgh.
U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ciara Gosier
The work was likely the first to assess long-term outcomes after laparoscopic endometriosis excision with a disease-specific questionnaire, the Endometriosis Health Profile-30 (EHP-30). The findings should reassure both surgeons and patients. “I really feel these results can help us as endometriosis providers” to counsel women, said lead investigator Nicole M. Donnellan, MD, a gynecologic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh.
Surgery “offers lasting improvement in all quality of life domains ... measured by the EHP-30”: pain; control/powerlessness; emotional well-being; social support; and self-image, with supplemental questions about work, sexual function, and other matters. Because “definitive surgery was not associated with improved outcomes when compared with fertility-sparing surgery ... fertility preservation should continue to be offered as first-line surgery for treatment of symptomatic disease,” Dr. Donnellan and her team concluded at a meeting sponsored by AAGL.
Surgery is the gold standard for endometriosis, but there just hasn’t been much data on long-term outcomes until now, especially with a potent questionnaire like the EHP-30. The gap left surgeons in the lurch on what to tell women how they’ll do, especially because results from previous, shorter, and less-rigorous studies have been mixed. The Pittsburgh results mean that competent surgeons can breathe easier and be confident in telling women what to expect.
The team administered EHP-30 to 61 women before surgery and at 4 weeks postoperatively; 45 patients (74%) had fertility-sparing excisions, 7 (11%) had hysterectomy with adnexa preservation, and 9 (15%) had hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. The women were contacted again in 2017 to fill out the survey anywhere from 3 to 7 years after their operation; 45 women agreed, a response rate of 74%.
There was a definitive, statistically significant reduction in scores across all five domains of the survey, both at 4 weeks and out to 7 years, and the improvements did not vary by endometriosis stage or the type of surgery women had.
The overall score – a combination of the five domains – fell from a preoperative median of 50 points out of a possible 100, with 100 being the worst possible score, to a median of about 20 points 4 weeks after surgery, and a median of about 10 points at long-term follow-up. Pain scores fell about the same amount; the greatest improvements were on questions that focused on sense of control and empowerment.
At long-term follow-up, overall scores improved a median of 43 points in women with American Society for Reproductive Medicine stage 1 endometriosis and 28 points among women with stage 4 disease (P = .705). Although the differences were not statistically significant, women with stage 1 disease generally reported the greatest improvements, except on the control and empowerment scale, where women reported the same improvement across all four stages, about 50 points out of 100.
Long-term score improvements were pretty much identical among women who had fertility-sparing surgery and those who had hysterectomies, with, for instance, both groups reporting about a 33-point improvement in pain scores. The two groups separated out only on emotional well-being scores, a 38-point improvement in the hysterectomy group versus 21 points, but the difference was not statistically significant (P = .525).
The long-term results remained the same when eight women who had subsequent gynecologic surgery were excluded.
In the end, the take home is that “all of these women improved,” Dr. Donnellan said.
The investigators didn’t report any disclosures.
SOURCE: Donnellan NM et al. 2018 AAGL Global Congress, Abstract 82.