Background: Endometrial ablation is a safe and effective minimally
invasive surgical procedure. Despite the high success rate of endometrial
ablation for heavy uterine bleeding management, some patients experience
persistent symptoms after the procedure, necessitating a hysterectomy. The aim of
this study is to determine the pre-operative clinical predictive factors of
failure of endometrial ablation in the management of uterine bleeding.
Methods: Retrospective cohort study of endometrial ablation procedures
performed for treating heavy uterine bleeding. Results: Ninety
five patients were included in the study. The failure rate was 24.2%. There was
a statistically significant association between ablation failure and fluid
deficit (p = 0.002) and intra-operative blood loss (p =
0.047). There was a statistically significant moderate association between
adenomyosis (p = 0.003, = 0.37) and failed endometrial
ablation. However, the age, body mass index (BMI), parity, number of
miscarriages, number of cesarean sections, uterine length, endometrial thickness
and procedure duration had no significant association with endometrial ablation.
There was no significant relationship between the uterine abnormalities in
general and the outcome of the endometrial ablation (p = 0.637).
However, patients with combined adenomyosis and dysmenorrhea had a statistically
significant association with outcome of the endometrial ablation (p =
0.016, = 0.28) and were more likely to have a failed endometrial
ablation (crude odds ratio (COR) = 4.67, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.35–16.09).
Logistic regression to adjust for related factors revealed that the
adenomyosis (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 50.83, 95% CI, 3.64–706.75, p
= 0.003) and fluid deficit (AOR = 1.003, 95% CI, 1.000–1.006, p =
0.044) had a higher likelihood of an unsuccessful outcome. Hysterectomy was
performed in 47.8% of patients who had failure of the ablation.
Conclusions: Among pre-operative factors, adenomyosis, fluid deficit and
combined adenomyosis and dysmenorrhea were found to predict failure of
hysteroscopic endometrial ablation. Clinical Trial Registration:
It was registered in https://www.clinicaltrials.gov database with Identifier: NCT05483348.