Article summary:

Bofill Rodriguez, M., Lethaby, A., & Fergusson, R. J. (2021). Endometrial resection and ablation versus hysterectomy for heavy menstrual bleeding. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2(2), CD000329. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD000329.pub4

Name of article: Endometrial resection and ablation versus hysterectomy for heavy menstrual bleeding Journal: The Cochrane database of systematic reviews

Year: 2021

Authors: Rodriguez et al.

Type of article: Systematic review

The systematic review assessed 1,966 patients from 10 different trials to determine what the best surgical technique is for abnormal uterine bleeding when conservative measures have failed. They compared endometrial ablation vs. different hysterectomy techniques. The authors assessed things like quality of life, improvement of bleeding, patient satisfaction, recovery time, time to return to work, and likelihood of requiring additional procedures. The authors found that while quality of life and satisfaction were similar across all groups, the endometrial ablation group was more likely to require additional procedures in the future, as well as have less relief of abnormal bleeding in some cases. Both minimally invasive hysterectomies and endometrial ablations were associated with less infection and blood loss compared to open hysterectomies.

Limitations mentioned in the article: There is likely to be performance bias since neither patients nor surgeon can be blinded for type of procedure being performed. Additionally, some of the evidence was graded as low-moderate quality indicating that additional research may alter these results.