Introduction Outpatient or office hysteroscopy is an important tool for diagnosis and treatment of intrauterine lesions. Office hysteroscopy requires no operation theater facilities or general anaesthesia and therefore it is more convenient to the patients and more cost-effective than inpatient hysteroscopy. Office hysteroscopy is usually accompanied by some degree of discomfort or pain. The majority of patients experience mild pain and few patients experience severe pain and vasovagal reaction [1]. Menopausal status, absence of vaginal delivery and history of previous cesarean section are the main risk factors for severe or intolerable pain during office hysteroscopy[2-3]. There is no consensus on the most effective method for pain …show more content…
The authors suggested that bladder distension can align the cervical canal with uterine cavity and therefore minimizes the trauma caused by the passage of the hysteroscope through the cervical canal and internal os [13]. We thought that this new treatment (bladder distension) may offer important advantages over currently available treatment ( misoprostol ), in terms of better convenience, compliance and cost-effectiveness. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of misoprostol with uterine straightening by bladder distension in minimizing the pain experienced by postmenopausal patients during office hysteroscopy. …show more content…
In the current study, a new treatment (bladder distension) was compared with the currently available treatment (misoprostol). This study aimed to reveal that uterine straightening by bladder distension was not inferior to misoprostol in relieving the pain experienced by postmenopausal patients during office hysteroscopy. At the time of study design, there were no studies in literature that reported the use of vaginal misoprostol (400µg) 12 hours before office hysteroscopy in postmenopausal patients. Available studies either included heterogeneous population of patients (postmenopausal patients and patients of reproductive age) or investigated different regimens of misoprostol administration in postmenopausal patients undergoing office hysteroscopy[6, 7,