A fourth type of indirectness, conceptually different from the first three, occurs when clinicians must choose between interventions that have not been tested in head-to-head comparisons. Making comparisons between treatments under these circumstances requires specific statistical methods and will be rated down in quality one or two levels depending on the extent of differences between the patient populations, co-interventions, measurements of the outcome, and the methods of the trials

of the candidate interventions. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. Metabolism inhibitor All rights reserved.”
“Aim:

The aim of this study was to assess the long-term effectiveness and safety of hysteroscopic rollerball endometrial ablation as a surgical management of adenomyosis with menorrhagia and/or dysmenorrhea. We compared the results of patients who underwent pretreatment Selleck BAY 80-6946 with gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist with the results of those who did not.

Methods:

A retrospective

study included 190 adenomyotic patients who suffered from menorrhagia and/or dysmenorrhea and underwent hysteroscopic rollerball endometrial ablation. Main outcome measures were rates of successful operation, complications, improvement of abnormal uterine bleeding and pelvic pain after the surgery.

Results:

The majority of the patients (142, 74.7%) underwent hysteroscopic rollerball endometrial ablation during the early proliferative phase of the menstrual cycle. The rest were operated on after GnRH agonist pretreatment for 6-8 weeks. Ablations were successfully performed on all patients in a day surgery setting. The average operation time was 36.3 +/- 7.1 min. The mean glycine deficit was 583.4 +/- 247.3 mL. The ablation in the no-pretreatment group took a significantly longer time and had more glycine absorption compared to the GnRH agonist pretreatment group (P < 0.0001). Mean postoperative follow-up duration was five years (range 1-10 years). A total of 187 patients (98.4%) who had undergone hysteroscopic endometrial ablation reported

decreased bleeding: amenorrhea in 58 (30.5%), hypomenorrhea Q-VD-Oph chemical structure in 78 (41.1%), and eumenorrhea in 51 (26.8%) patients. Three patients (1.6%) underwent hysterectomy due to symptoms recurrence. A total of 165 (86.8%) patients with dysmenorrhea reported either reduced or no dysmenorrhea. There was no significant difference in the efficacy of hysteroscopic rollerball endometrial ablation between patients who underwent pretreatment with GnRH agonists and those who did not. No major complications related to the procedure were reported.

Conclusions:

Hysteroscopic rollerball endometrial ablation as a surgical management of menorrhagia and dysmenorrhea that develops in patients with adenomyosis is an effective and safe procedure.