[Surgical scar endometriosis: a series of 42 patients]

PURPOSE: to evaluate the frequency and clinical picture of patients with incisional endometriosis. METHODS: retrospective descriptive study performed from the medical records of patients that underwent nodules resection in the surgical scar at Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, from November 1990 to September 2003. The age, parity, number of cesarean sections, symptoms, tumor location, initial diagnosis, treatment, and recurrences were surveyed and analyzed. The results were reported as percentage, mean, and standard deviation. RESULTS: we found 42 patients that were diagnosed with scar endometriosis. From these 42 cases, 37 were of endometriosis on cesarean section scar; 3 cases of episiotomies and 2 cases on bladder in scar of hysterography. The mean age of the patients was 32.4 years old, standard deviation of ±6.2 years. All of them had previous obstetric surgery, and the main complaint was nodulation with perimenstrual pain in 40% of the cases. In 57% of the patients, the clinical evaluation was confirmed by pelvic or transvaginal ultrasonography. Patients were treated with total resection, and recurrence occurred in only two cases. CONCLUSION: scar surgical endometriosis is uncommon; however, the clinical diagnosis is easy when the signs and symptoms are known. The effective treatment is surgical resection.