Treating endometriosis with surgery improves quality of life

Key takeaways:

• Quality of life scores were better at 3 and 6 months after endometriosis surgery vs. before surgery.
• No correlation was observed between the degree of endometriosis and quality of life scores at any time point.

Women who undergo endometriosis surgery report several quality of life improvements, according to study findings.

One method for assessing the quality of life of women with endometriosis is the Endometriosis Health Profile questionnaire, which consists of items generated directly from patient interviews.

“The relevance of this method for the construction of its items arises from literature findings that indicate that patients’ evaluations of their health and well-being differ from those performed by health professionals,” João Nogueira Neto, MD, professor in the department of medicine at the College of Medicine at the Federal University of Maranhão and the São Domingos Hospital Gynecology Service in São Luís, Brazil, and colleagues wrote.

Nogueira Neto and colleagues conducted an observational, longitudinal and prospective analytical study with 102 women (mean age, 35.96 years; 17.6% white) with pelvic pain and endometriosis that had not improved through clinical treatment. All women were indicated for surgical treatment from September 2020 to May 2022. Quality of life was assessed through the 30-item Endometriosis Health Profile questionnaire (score of 0-100, with a lower score indicating better quality of life) before and 3 and 6 months after surgery.

Overall, 20.5% of women underwent excision of all endometriotic lesions alone, 29.5% underwent excision plus myomectomy, 22.6% underwent excision plus hysterectomy, 22.5% underwent excision plus rectosigmoidectomy plus hysterectomy and 4.9% underwent excision plus myomectomy plus rectosigmoidectomy.

Compared with a mean score of 46.67 in the central questionnaire before surgery, scores 3 and 6 months after surgery were 16.25 and 7.5, respectively (P < .0001 for all). Mean 30-item Endometriosis Health Profile questionnaire scores for the work module (10 and 0 vs. 35), the relationship with children module(0 and 0 vs. 50), the sexual intercourse module(15 and 7.5 vs. 50), the treatment module (16.66 and 0 vs. 41.66) and the infertility module (25 and 6.25 vs. 50) were also lower at 3 and 6 months after surgery compared with before surgery, respectively. In addition, researchers observed a reduction in questionnaire scores for the medical profession module 6 months after surgery compared with scores before surgery (P < .0001).

Researchers observed no correlation between the degree of endometriosis diagnosis and quality of life questionnaire scores at any time points.

“Based on the results obtained and analyzed, surgery offers a good prognosis for improving the quality of life of women with endometriosis, and it is justified to relieve the suffering, limitations of daily activities, and anxiety and depression that affect patients with endometriosis,” the researchers wrote.