Pregnancy and delivery outcomes in women with rectovaginal endometriosis treated either conservatively or operatively

Anni Tuominen, Liisu Saavalainen, Aila Tiitinen, Tiitinen A, Oskari Heikinheimo, Härkki P, Päivi Härkki
Fertility and sterility · 2020 · vol. 115(2) , pp. 406–415 · doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2020.07.051 · PMID:33039131 · W3092257129
Observational OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 11 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-11 ⓘ

Women with rectovaginal endometriosis had similar pregnancy and live-birth rates, along with comparable complication rates, whether treated conservatively or surgically.

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

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To study reproductive outcomes, and pregnancy and delivery complications after conservative or operative treatment of rectovaginal endometriosis during long-term follow-up. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: University hospital. PATIENT(S): Women with rectovaginal endometriosis referred to hospital due to any indication from 2004 to 2013 (N = 543) who were treated initially either conservatively (group CONS, n = 183), or operatively (OPER, n = 360) either with resection of rectovaginal nodule (RVR, n = 192) or with concomitant bowel resection (BR, n = 132). INTERVENTION(S): Conservative or operative management. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Clinical pregnancy rate, live-birth rate, and assessment of the complications during pregnancy and delivery. RESULTS(S): Between women in the CONS group or OPER group, no differences were found in either clinical pregnancy rate (56%, n = 102 vs. 50%, n = 181) or live-birth rate (48%, n = 87 vs. 42%, n = 153). Of the pregnancies, 64% (n = 65) and 49% (n = 89), respectively, started after medically assisted reproduction. No differences emerge in the subanalysis of women <40 years-old who wished to conceive. The most common pregnancy complication was preterm birth: 15% (n = 13) in the CONS group and 20% (n = 30) in the OPER group. The cesarean delivery rate also was high (46%, n = 40 vs. 49%, n = 76). Complications emerged in 21% (n = 10) versus 29% (n = 23) of vaginal deliveries and 45% (n = 18) versus 53% (n = 40) of cesarean deliveries. The most common delivery complication was excessive bleeding. The follow-up period was 4.9 years in the CONS group and 5.6 years in the OPER group. CONCLUSION(S): Women with rectovaginal endometriosis have comparable and good reproductive prognosis regardless of the treatment method.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosisbowel_endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Conservative Treatment Endometriosis Gynecologic Surgical Procedures Infertility, Female Rectum Vagina Adult Adult Cohort Studies Cohort Studies Conservative Treatment Conservative Treatment Conservative Treatment Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Female Follow-Up Studies

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

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. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

References (38)

Cited by (12)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-10-14T06:08:39.101224+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:28:48.188428+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK