Women with vulvar disease experience impaired sexual well-being compared with their healthy counterparts, report Dr. Sophie Wylomanski and coauthors from the department of gynecology and obstetrics at Nantes (France) University Hospital.
In a study of 72 women with vulvar disease and 72 controls who completed the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) assessment, the median FSFI score was 21.1 in the vulvar disease patients, compared with 28.1 in the control group. The sexual function scores were significantly lower in the vulvar disease group – by an average of 4.5 points – when multivariate analysis was performed (P = .003), Dr. Wylomanski and associates said.
FSFI subscores showed that vulvar disease had a significant effect on arousal, pain, lubrication, satisfaction, and desire. Scores “seemed lower” for premalignant vulvar disease when compared with inflammatory, infectious, and other disease types, the investigators reported.
Read the full article in the European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology (doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2015.08.011).