Surgery and cancer after endometrial resection. Long-term follow-up on menstrual bleeding and hormone treatment by questionnaire and registry.

Purpose: Long-term follow-up 11 years after endometrial ablation.

Methods: A questionnaire on menstruation, hormone treatment, and operations on women, which had 421 endometrial ablations during 1990-1996, was added to registered data on cancer, operational and obstetrical history.

Results: Eighty-two percent of the questionnaires were returned and answered. Of those women on hormone treatment after ablation 26% had a hysterectomy later on compared to 34% of women with no hormone treatment after ablation (P = 0.28; chi (2) test). Hysterectomy was directly proportional to the amount of meno/metrorrhagia; however, the number of women with a hysterectomy was evenly distributed in relation to the duration of hormone treatment. The time of hormone treatment in relation to the ablation was not associated with the distribution of meno/metrorrhagia or whether the women had a hysterectomy later on. We observed three women with incidental endometrial cancer at follow-up and the expected numbers were 6.8 cases.

Conclusion: Endometrial ablation is an effective form of treatment for menorrhagia with no increase in the incidence of endometrial cancer. Hormonal treatment does not seem to have any influence on the course of events.