Long‐term adjuvant therapy for the prevention of postoperative endometrioma recurrence: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Paolo Vercellini, Sara De Matteis, Edgardo Somigliana, Laura Buggio, Maria Pina Frattaruolo, Luigi Fedele
Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica · 2012 · vol. 92(1) , pp. 8–16 · doi:10.1111/j.1600-0412.2012.01470.x · PMID:22646295 · W2123593765
review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 102 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

Long-term postoperative oral contraceptive use significantly reduces ovarian endometrioma recurrence risk compared to expectant management.

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

Abstract

Ovulation seems crucial in the pathogenesis of ovarian endometriomas. Therefore, suppression of ovulation should be protective against cyst relapse after excision. The objective of this systematic review was to assess the effect of long-term postoperative medical treatment on the risk of endometrioma recurrence. A MEDLINE search was conducted to identify all the comparative studies published in the last 12 years in the English language literature on the relation between long-term postoperative adjuvant therapy and risk of endometrioma recurrence. Of the 12 articles assessed in detail, four were finally selected based on surgery for endometriotic cysts, postoperative medical treatment use for ≥ 12 months vs. expectant management, and ultrasonographic and/or histological diagnosis of endometrioma recurrence. A total of 965 women were enrolled, 726 of whom were in three cohort studies and 239 in one randomized controlled trial. Oral contraceptives (OCs) were always used as postoperative adjuvant treatment. The absolute effect of postoperative OC use was assessed by comparing "always" and "never" users. A recurrent endometrioma was identified in 33 of 423 (8%) "always" OC users and in 117 of 341 (34%) women who underwent expectant management (pooled odds ratio 0.12; 95% confidence interval 0.05-0.29). To define the effect of duration of use, "always" users were compared with "ever" users, and "ever" with "never" users, with a pooled odds ratio of, respectively, 0.21 (95% confidence interval 0.11-0.40) and 0.39 (95% confidence interval 0.23-0.66). Postoperative OC use dramatically decreased the risk of ovarian endometrioma recurrence, especially in women who used OCs regularly and for prolonged periods.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosisendometrioma

MeSH descriptors

Contraceptives, Oral Endometriosis Endometriosis Chemotherapy, Adjuvant Combined Modality Therapy Contraceptives, Oral Contraceptives, Oral Dose-Response Relationship, Drug Endometriosis Female Humans Postoperative Period Risk Factors Secondary Prevention

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (50)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-11T06:19:48.454388+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:16:11.197438+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK