Vaginal hysterectomy. A five year prospective descriptive study.

OBJECTIVE: To review patients who had vaginal hysterectomy and observe any complications related to the procedure. DESIGN: A prospective descriptive study. SETTING: Sunshine Hospital, Actonville, Benoni, Gauteng Province, South Africa. SUBJECTS: 124 consecutive women who had vaginal hysterectomy. INTERVENTIONS: Vaginal hysterectomy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Duration of operation, hospital stay, intra and post operative complications; need for blood transfusion; histological result of uterus and uterus weight. RESULTS: The mean age was 44.7years (range 16 to 74 years). Mean parity was 2.7 (range 0 to 9). Common indications were menorrhagia (34.7%) and myomatous uterus (25.8%). The common risk factors were previous Caesarean delivery (12.9%), medical conditions (9.7%) and previous tubal ligation (10.5%). The mean operation time was 86.6 minutes (range 52 to 140 minutes). Only two (1.6%) patients required blood transfusion. Complications occurred in 5.6% of the patients. Myomatous uterus (40.3%) and adenomyosis (19.4%) were the commonest histological diagnosis. The mean hospital stay was 2.5 days (range 2 to 21 days). The average weight of the uterus was 142.2 gms (range 25 to 599gms). CONCLUSIONS: Vaginal hysterectomy can be performed and achieve very low complication rates.