Validation study of nonsurgical diagnosis of endometriosis

To determine whether the surgical diagnosis of endometriosis can be predicted using symptoms, signs, and ultrasound findings.

Prospective study (study sample); retrospective record review (test sample).

Hospital of Desio (study sample) and Mangiagalli Hospital (test sample), Italy.

PATIENT(S): Ninety women scheduled to undergo laparoscopy or laparotomy (study sample); 120 women who underwent laparoscopy (test sample).

The study sample group was interviewed before surgery about infertility and dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and noncyclic pelvic pain and each member had a pelvic examination and a transvaginal ultrasound. At surgery, endometriosis was noted. For the test sample, the same information was abstracted from medical records after laparoscopy.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): The ability of symptoms, signs, and ultrasound to predict endometriosis at surgery. A classification tree was developed with the study sample and evaluated with the test sample.

RESULT(S): Ovarian endometriosis, but not nonovarian endometriosis, could be reliably predicted with noninvasive tools. Ultrasound and examination best predicted ovarian endometriosis, correctly classifying 100% of cases with no false positive diagnoses in the study sample. Similar results were found in the test sample.

CONCLUSION(S): Noninvasive tools may be used to identify women with ovarian, but not nonovarian endometriosis, with excellent agreement with surgical diagnosis.