Evaluation of the impact of endometriotic lesions on patient's pelvic pain symptoms

Abstract

Purpose: To verify if different endometrial lesions determine the diagnostic symptom panel for a specific symptom. Methods: We recruited 537 women with endometriosis who underwent laparoscopic surgery. Data on patient characteristics, severity of pelvic pain symptoms, disease stage and anatomical characteristics of endometriotic lesions were collected and analyzed by univariate analysis, followed by multiple logistic regression. Results: We observed a strong inverse relationship between pain symptoms and, respectively, the age of women at surgery (OR 0.885; p<0.05) and nulliparity (OR 5.6; p<0.05). A significant association between dysmenorrhea and nulliparity (OR 10.1; p< 0.01) and dysmenorrhea and rAFS stage (OR 4.7; p<0.05) was also confirmed. Finally a strong relationship was found between the presence of a rectovaginal endometriotic nodule and pain symptoms: dyspareunia (OR 13.8, p<0.001) and dysmenorrhea (OR 2.3, p<0.05). Significant relationships were found between the presence of peri-annexial adherences and, respectively, bilateral endometrioma (p<0.01) and size of endometrioma (p<0.05); between the presence of pelvic adherential syndrome and, respectively, bilateral ovarian cyst (p<0.01), size of ovarian cyst (p<0.01) and rectovaginal nodule (p<0.01). A strong relationship was found also between a rectovaginal nodule and the presence of entero-uterine adherences (p<0.01) and Douglas obliteration (p<0.01). Conclusions: It was not possible determine a precise relationship between a specific pain symptom and the anatomic-surgical characteristics of endometriotic lesions, even though a strong association was seen between a rectovaginal endometriotic nodule and deep dyspareunia. Typical clinical features of endometriosis are probably determined by the association of different characteristics of lesions and different pathogenic mechanisms. © 2010 Wichtig Editore