5 Signs Your Fibroids May Benefit From a Robotic Myomectomy
About 26 million American women ages 15-50 have uterine fibroids, and more than 15 million of them experience complications, often making a myomectomy a very good idea.
Endometriosis Excision Surgery: Is It the Right Step for Your Pelvic Pain?
Endometriosis isn’t only incredibly common — the condition affects about 10% of reproductive-aged women around the world — it’s also incredibly challenging. This is because endometriosis affects women in many different ways and to differing degrees, so no two women share the same endometriosis journey.
That said, some side effects are more common (and serious) than others, and we’re mainly referring to pain — chronic pelvic pain, which affects 60% of women with endometriosis; and painful intercourse, which affects 50-70% of women with the condition. Unfortunately, many women experience both.
As leading experts in endometriosis, Dr. Ulas Bozdogan and our team at Advanced Endometriosis Center have in-depth knowledge and experience in treating this gynecologic condition.
Here, we look at when surgery might be the best path forward for pain relief and improving your quality of life.
The stages of endometriosis
As you likely already know, endometriosis is a condition in which endometrial tissues grow outside your uterus.
These tissues can’t leave your body the way they normally would during your period, and often form adhesions and implants in and around your pelvic organs. These implants can lead to dysfunction and pain, depending on which organs and tissues are involved.
To help patients and medical providers navigate endometriosis, there's a grading system:
- Stage I — Minimal implants and minor symptoms
- Stage II — More implants that are deeper in your tissues
- Stage III — Deep implants, cysts on your ovaries, and adhesions
- Stage IV — Many deep implants, dense adhesions, and large cysts on your ovaries
Again, endometriosis can impact women to varying degrees and in many different ways, so this grading system is meant to be more of a guide.
The reason we’re reviewing it here is that this is one of our first treatment considerations — how advanced is your endometriosis?
Surgery for advanced endometriosis
We often treat early endometriosis with medications, including hormone therapies that can prevent deeper implants and adhesions from forming or growing larger.
If you’re already dealing with deep implants and dense adhesions, medications may not provide enough relief on their own. This is especially true if you’ve developed what we call deep infiltrating endometriosis (DE), which affects one in five women with endometriosis.
In its most severe forms, deep infiltrating endometriosis can lead to a “frozen pelvis,” often corresponding to advanced (stage III–IV) disease that can lead to moderate-to-severe pelvic pain and pain during sex.
Whether your endometriosis qualifies as DE or not, if you’re struggling with pain and conservative efforts aren't providing relief, it’s time to discuss surgical removal of endometrial tissues.
Dr. Bozdogan is highly experienced in endometriosis excision and uses advanced minimally invasive robotic technology, including the da Vinci® system, to ensure precise treatment.
This cutting-edge technology not only allows us to greatly reduce collateral tissue damage, but it also provides Dr. Bozdogan with greater precision and accuracy. These benefits are especially important when separating deep implants and tough adhesions from pelvic organs and tissues.
When it comes to success rates of excision surgery for endometriosis, one analysis concluded that “surgical removal of endometriotic lesions offers significant improvements” in the quality of life of women with problematic endometriosis.
So, if you have moderate-to-severe endometriosis that’s impacting your life, it’s likely time to consider surgery.
To figure out next steps and whether surgery is a good path forward, we invite you to contact us at one of our conveniently located offices in New York City or Paramus, New Jersey, to schedule a consultation.
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