Time to full effect, following treatment with combined oral contraceptives (cyclic versus continuous administration) in patients with endometriosis after laparoscopic surgery: a prospective cohort study

Triantafyllidou O, Olga Triantafyllidou, Georgios Kolovos, Voros C, Charalambos Voros, Vlachos A, Athanasios Vlachos, Panagiotis Vakas, Vakas P, Nikos Vlahos, Nikolaos Vlahos
Human fertility (Cambridge, England) · 2020 · vol. 25(1) , pp. 72–79 · doi:10.1080/14647273.2019.1704451 · PMID:31979988 · W3003020048
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 3 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This prospective cohort study found that continuous combined oral contraceptive use after laparoscopic endometriosis surgery led to a more pronounced reduction in dyspareunia and dysmenorrhoea at 9 and 6 months, respectively, compared to cyclic use.

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

Abstract

The risk of recurrence after surgery is a major problem in women who are suffering from endometriosis. The prescription oral contraceptives (OCs) in the treatment of endometriosis-related pain, in women who do not desire fertility, is still controversial. The aim of this prospective cohort study is to evaluate the time until the reduction in the mean intensity of dysmenorrhoea and deep dyspareunia takes effect, for patients who use combined OCs in the accepted cyclic manner, versus in the continuous fashion as after the laparoscopic excision of endometriosis. A total of 28 patients diagnosed with endometriosis who underwent surgical treatment were offered at least a 12 months course of oral contraceptives. The intensity of both symptoms was reduced at the end of observational period in both groups. The use of continuous OCs (11 patients) was associated with a more pronounced reduction in the mean intensity of dyspareunia and dysmenorrhoea at 9 (p = 0.004) and 6 (p = 0.003) months respectively as compared to the cyclic group (17 patients).

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

dysmenorrheaendometriosisdyspareunia

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Laparoscopy Contraceptives, Oral, Combined Dysmenorrhea Dysmenorrhea Dysmenorrhea Female Humans Prospective Studies Treatment Outcome

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 (49)

Cited by (3)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-09-10T06:15:44.054944+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:22:17.025735+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK