The correlation between ultrasonographic findings and clinical symptoms of pelvic endometriosis

TL;DR

This study explores how ultrasound findings correlate with clinical symptoms in women with pelvic endometriosis.

Contribution

The study provides insights into the correlation between transvaginal ultrasound findings and clinical manifestations of pelvic endometriosis.

Findings

Endometrioma larger than 3 cm was observed in 79.9% of patients.

Deep infiltrating endometriosis varied in size, with 37% of cases exceeding 3 cm.

Transvaginal ultrasound is suggested as a first-line diagnostic tool for endometriosis.

Abstract

Considering the importance of endometriosis and its relatively high prevalence among women, this study sought to investigate clinical and Transrectal and transvaginal ultrasounds (TVS) findings of disease.

This descriptive-analytical study was performed based on medical records of 155 women with endometriosis admitted to Rasool-e Akram Hospital in Tehran for a TVS. All the sonography data and patients’ information were collected into checklists and analyzed in SPSS-25 software (IBM).

The mean age of participants was 32.4 ± 6.1 years, ranging from 18 to 50 years. Endometrioma was prevalent in 129 patients (84.8%). Size of endometrioma (diameter) was more than 3 cm in 79.9% of patients, and 3 cm or fewer in 20.1% of cases. Bladder, intestinal, vaginal, and rectosigmoid involvements with endometriosis implants were observed in 4 (2.6%), 54 (35.5), 3 (0.2%), and 51 (33.5) of patients, respectively. A total of 64.5% of patients were diagnosed with incomplete stenosis of the Douglas pouch and 35.5% had complete stenosis. Deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE) was less than 1 cm in 20.7%, 1 to 3 cm in 42.3%, and over 3 cm in 37% of patients. The most common manifestations of endometriosis Obliteration of the Douglas pouch, endometrioma, and DIE. In addition, imaging modalities have shown promising results, indicating the necessity to use transvaginal ultrasound as the first line of diagnosis in patients with clinically suspected endometriosis.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-024-06761-4.