Recovery of quality of life after laparoscopic myomectomy

• Published in: The journal of obstetrics and gynaecology research Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 176 - 181
• Main Authors: Tsuzuki, Yoko, Tsuzuki, Shinya, Wada, Shinichiro, Fukushi, Yoshiyuki, Fujino, Takafumi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kyoto, Japan John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 01.01.2019; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Bleeding; Body mass index; EQ‐5D score; Fibroids; Humans; Infertility; Invasiveness; laparoscopic myomectomy; laparoscopic surgery; Laparoscopy; Laparoscopy - statistics & numerical data; Original; Pain; Postoperative Period; postoperative recovery; QOL; Quality of Life; Surgery; Uterine Myomectomy - statistics & numerical data; laparoscopic myomectomy; postoperative recovery; laparoscopic surgery; EQ-5D score; QOL
• ISSN: 1341-8076; 1447-0756
• DOI: 10.1111/jog.13808

Aim It is commonly thought that laparoscopic surgery leads to faster postoperative recovery for its low invasiveness. We evaluated postoperative quality of life (QOL) after laparoscopic myomectomy (LM) by using the Euro‐QOL 5 dimension (EQ‐5D) score and analyzed its relationship to surgical factors. Methods Between 2014 and 2016, 541 patients underwent LM at our institution. We included 86 patients in the final analysis (16% response rate) who replied to the EQ‐5D questionnaire, in order to investigate postoperative QOL. We evaluated patients’ EQ‐5D score before the operation and on the 3rd, 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th postoperative day (POD). We investigated the degree of correlation between the EQ‐5D score and four surgical characteristics (operation time, intraoperative bleeding, number of resected myomas and weight of specimen). We examined correlation between EQ‐5D scores and chief complaints such as hypermenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, other pain, myoma enlargement, palpable tumor and desire for childbearing. We also examined correlation between EQ‐5D scores and other factors such as patient's age, infertility, history of abdominal surgery, marriage and body mass index. Results Full recovery, defined as an EQ‐5D score of 1.0, was reported 2.3% of patients by POD3, 18.6% by POD7, 58.1% by POD14, 73.3% by POD21 and 86.0% by POD28. Longer duration of operation correlated weakly with poor recovery on POD3. Intraoperative bleeding, number of resected myomas and weight of the specimen did not significantly influence EQ‐5D score. There was no correlation between chief complaints or other factors mentioned above and EQ‐5D score. Conclusions More than a half of the patients undergoing LM included in our study reported full recovery of QOL after 2 weeks. The time to recover QOL was slightly influenced by the operation time. However, when LM was finished without any complications, postoperative QOL eventually seemed to improve regardless of the surgical characteristics such as operation time, intraoperative bleeding, number of resected myomas and weight of specimen.