The value of diagnostic hysteroscopy with biopsy in the preoperative of endometrial ablation.

OBJECTIVE To assess the value of diagnostic hysteroscopy with biopsy in the preoperative preparation for endometrial ablation. METHODS It was a prospective non-randomized study conducted at the division of Gynecologic Endoscopy of Hospital do Servidor Público Estadual "Francisco Morato de Oliveira" from March 2007 to May 2009. A total of 45 patients with abnormal uterine bleeding, and referred to endometrial ablation were included. All women underwent a diagnostic hysteroscopy, and were treated with a GnRH analogous - goserelin - 10.8 mg before surgery. The endometrial ablation was performed with a surgical resectoscope. Patients were submitted to one directed endometrial biopsy, one guided endometrial biopsy with Novak curette, and to endometrial ablation, which was considered as reference for pathological examination with samples from the biopsies. Data were analyze using the SPSS-v16 software, and considered significance at p = 0.05. RESULTS The mean age of women was 44.20 years (33-56), parity of 2.67 (0-9), uterus size of 139.99 calculated in cc (42-278), and the mean duration of symptoms was 3.68 years (0.5-15). The guided endometrial biopsy showed sensitivity of 80% for endometrium without atypia, and the directed endometrial biopsy had sensitivity of 60%. For proliferative endometrium the directed endometrial biopsy showed sensitivity of 76 and 100% for secretory endometrium, which was higher than the guided endometrial biopsy with 53 and 50%, respectively. CONCLUSION The directed biopsy before endometrial ablation had lower sensitivity than guided biopsy for endometrium without atypia, however it was higher for proliferative and secretory endometrium.