Evaluation of Bowel Function after Surgical Treatment for Intestinal Endometriosis: A Prospective Study

BACKGROUND: Defecation symptoms related to intestinal deep infiltrative endometriosis are caused by anatomical and functional disorders and are probably linked to the course of the disease and surgical treatment. OBJECTIVE: The primary aim of this study was to assess bowel function before and after intestinal deep infiltrative endometriosis surgery. Secondarily, we sought to correlate defecatory symptoms with preoperative risk factors. DESIGN/SETTINGS: This is a single-center prospective cohort study, using the low anterior resection syndrome score to evaluate bowel function 4 weeks before, as well as at 6 months and 1 year after surgery. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and logistic multiple regression analyses were performed to compare preoperative and postoperative scores. The level of significance was set at <0.05 for all comparisons. PATIENTS: Thirty-seven adult female patients who underwent intestinal resection for deep infiltrative endometriosis between 2015 and 2017 were included. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was bowel function appraisement in deep infiltrative endometriosis intestinal surgery. RESULTS: During the preoperative evaluation, 48.6% of patients reported low anterior resection syndrome score ≥21. This group presented a mean score of 17.9 ± 13.7, with a median of 20 and a range of 5 to 30. After 1 year, the mean score was decreased to 9.6 ± 11.1, with a median of 4 and a range of 0 to 22. A significant difference was detected when comparing the post- and preoperative scores (p = 0.0006). Improvements in defecatory symptoms such as reduced fecal incontinence for flatus (p = 0.004) and liquid stools (p = 0.014) were also reported. The clustering of stools (p = 0.005) and fecal urgency (p = 0.001) also improved 1 year after surgery. The preoperative multiple logistic regression showed that dyschezia was the only independent variable associated with bowel symptoms. LIMITATIONS: This is a well-documented prospective study, but the data presented have a relatively small population. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence that intestinal deep infiltrative endometriosis surgery improves bowel function and has a positive impact on evacuation symptoms. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/B534. © 2021 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. All rights reserved.