Does experience in hysteroscopy improve accuracy and inter-observer agreement in the management of abnormal uterine bleeding?

BACKGROUND: Hysteroscopic reliability may be influenced by the experience of the operator and by a lack of morphological diagnostic criteria for endometrial malignant pathologies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and the inter-observer agreement (IOA) in the management of abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) among different experienced gynecologists. METHODS: Each gynecologist, without any other clinical information, was asked to evaluate the anonymous video recordings of 51 consecutive patients who underwent hysteroscopy and endometrial resection for AUB. Experts (>500 hysteroscopies), seniors (20-499 procedures) and junior (≤19 procedures) gynecologists were asked to judge endometrial macroscopic appearance (benign, suspicious or frankly malignant). They also had to propose the histological diagnosis (atrophic or proliferative endometrium; simple, glandulocystic or atypical endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial carcinoma). Observers were free to indicate whether the quality of recordings were not good enough for adequate assessment. IOA (k coefficient), sensitivity, specificity, predictive value and the likelihood ratio were calculated. RESULTS: Five expert, five senior and six junior gynecologists were involved in the study. Considering endometrial cancer and endometrial atypical hyperplasia, sensitivity and specificity were respectively 55.5 % and 84.5 % for juniors, 66.6 % and 81.2 % for seniors and 86.6 % and 87.3 % for experts. Concerning endometrial macroscopic appearance, IOA was poor for juniors (k = 0.10) and fair for seniors and experts (k = 0.23 and 0.22, respectively). IOA was poor for juniors and experts (k = 0.18 and 0.20, respectively) and fair for seniors (k = 0.30) in predicting the histological diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Sensitivity improves with the observer's experience, but inter-observer agreement and reproducibility of hysteroscopy for endometrial malignancies are not satisfying no matter the level of expertise. Therefore, an accurate and complete endometrial sampling is still needed.

Sampling in Atypical Endometrial Hyperplasia: Which Method Results in the Lowest Underestimation of Endometrial Cancer? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Our objective was to identify the most accurate method of endometrial sampling for the diagnosis of complex atypical hyperplasia (CAH), and the related risk of underestimation of endometrial cancer. We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed and EMBASE (January 1999-September 2013) to identify all registered articles on this subject. Studies were selected with a 2-step method. First, titles and abstracts were analyzed by 2 reviewers, and 69 relevant articles were selected for full reading. Then, the full articles were evaluated to determine whether full inclusion criteria were met. We selected 27 studies, taking into consideration the comparison between histology of endometrial hyperplasia obtained by diagnostic tests of interest (uterine curettage, hysteroscopically guided biopsy, or hysteroscopic endometrial resection) and subsequent results of hysterectomy. Analysis of the studies reviewed focused on 1106 patients with a preoperative diagnosis of atypical endometrial hyperplasia. The mean risk of finding endometrial cancer at hysterectomy after atypical endometrial hyperplasia diagnosed by uterine curettage was 32.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 26.2-39.9), with a risk of 45.3% (95% CI, 32.8-58.5) after hysteroscopically guided biopsy and 5.8% (95% CI, 0.8-31.7) after hysteroscopic resection. In total, the risk of underestimation of endometrial cancer reaches a very high rate in patients with CAH using the classic method of evaluation (i.e., uterine curettage or hysteroscopically guided biopsy). This rate of underdiagnosed endometrial cancer leads to the risk of inappropriate surgical procedures (31.7% of tubal conservation in the data available and no abdominal exploration in 24.6% of the cases). Hysteroscopic resection seems to reduce the risk of underdiagnosed endometrial cancer.