Learning curve in the analysis of endometriosis by using magnetic resonance: Comparison with surgical results

Luca Saba
2010 · doi:10.1594/ecr2010/c-1250 · W2556315289
OA: green CC0
🔓 Open OA copy Full text JSON View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-10-11 ⓘ

This study evaluated the learning curve in analyzing endometriosis using magnetic resonance imaging by comparing diagnostic results with surgical findings.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-10-11 · read from full text ⓘ

This study evaluated the impact of radiological experience on the diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging for detecting endometriosis by comparing results from two sequential analyses. Thirty female patients suspected of having endometriosis based on symptoms such as pelvic pain and infertility underwent MRI scans, which were then compared against surgical findings to determine sensitivity and specificity. The researchers found that diagnostic performance improved significantly in the second analysis across various anatomical sites, including the ovaries, uterosacral ligaments, and rectovaginal septum, demonstrating a clear learning curve. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — specifically focusing on the diagnostic utility of MRI and the effect of operator expertise on identifying deep infiltrating lesions.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Poster: ECR 2010 / C-1250 / Learning curve in the analysis of endometriosis by using magnetic resonance: Comparison with surgical results by: L. Saba , S. Guerriero, R. Sulcis, M. Pilloni, G. Melis, G. Mallarini; Cagliari/IT
Full text 3,185 characters · extracted from oa-html · 5 sections · click to expand

Keywords

Genital / Reproductive system female, Obstetrics (Pregnancy / birth / postnatal period), Pelvis Authors: L. Saba, S. Guerriero, R. Sulcis, M. Pilloni, G. Melis, G. Mallarini; Cagliari/IT DOI: 10.1594/ecr2010/C-1250 Purpose Endometriosis is one of the most prevalent conditions in women, in particular in the reproductive age group. The mean age at diagnosis is 25-29 years, but it is often greater in women who present with infertility rather than pelvic pain . Endometriosis is defined as the presence of endometrial tissue outside the endometrium and the myometrium and the most common locations of endometriosis are the ovaries and the pelvic peritoneum, followed pelvic subperitoneal space, intestinal system and urinary system. Although endometriosis can be asymptomatic, frequently...

Methods

and Materials 30 consecutive female in-patients (mean age 34; range 21-45 years) were studied by using MRI in our Center (A.O.U. Cagliari - Presidio di Monserrato). Each patient was suspected of having endometriosis at clinical examination (pelvic pain, infertility, nodules, or tenderness at physical examination). The patients had presented with one or more of the following symptoms: dysmenorrhea (n = 16), infertility (n = 5), lower abdominal pain (n = 4), hypermenorrhea (n = 2), pain with defecation (n = 2) and abnormal genital bleeding (n =...

Results

In the first analysis sensitivity and specificity for ovary were 88.9% and 87%; in the second analysis 92.6% and 91.3%. In the first analysis sensitivity and specificity for USL were 62.5% and 76.9%; in the second analysis 80.0% and 84.6%. In the first analysis sensitivity and specificity for vaginal fornix were 63.2% and 64.5%; in the second analysis 73.7% and 82.8%. In the first analysis sensitivity and specificity for rectum\sigma\Douglas were 40%% and 80%; in the second analysis 73.3% and 90%.

Conclusion

The “learning curve” is defined as a graph that represents the progress in the mastery of a skill against the time required for such mastery. This theory has been described by Ericsson et al, who are proponents of the idea that deliberate practice is fundamental to achieving expertise. Prior studies tried to analyze the effect of training and experience in diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity but to our knowledge, there has been no study that analyzed the learning curve in MRI by using the same...

References

Guerriero S, Ajossa S, Gerada M, D’ Aquila M, Piras B, Melis GB. “tenderness guided” transvaginal ultrasonography: a new method for the detection of deep endometriosis in patients with chronic pelvic pain . Fertil Steril 2007; 88:1293-7Guerriero S, Ajossa S, Gerada M, Virgilio B, Angioni S, Melis GB. Diagnostic value of transvaginal “tenderness-guided” ultrasonography for the prediction of deep endometriosis. Hum Reprod 2008;23:2452-7.Guerriero S, Ajossa S, Mais V, Risalvato A, Lai MP, Melis GB. The diagnosis of endometriomas using colour Doppler energy imaging. Hum Reprod...

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-html ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Condition tags

endometriosis

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK