Diagnosis of endometrial hyperplasia in women with abnormal uterine bleeding

BACKGROUND: Reliability of hysteroscopy in diagnosing endometrial hyperplasia in women with abnormal uterine bleeding. METHODS: Out of 105 patients with abnormal uterine bleeding 47 showed structural abnormalities. Comparative analysis between hysteroscopic and histological results in 58 women without gross abnormalities has been performed in order to verify sensitivity and specificity of hysteroscopy in the diagnosis of endometrial hyperplasia. RESULTS: Specificity of hysteroscopy in diagnosing endometrial hyperplasia was 84.7% while sensitivity resulted to be 80%. CONCLUSIONS: Women with abnormal uterine bleeding and normal uterine cavity has a low rate (3.4%) of false negative endometrial hyperplasia. On the contrary findings of endometrial hyperplasia at hysteroscopy has a high incidence of false positive (25.8%). In conclusion, abnormal uterine bleeding could cause an increased thickness in endometrium, appearing as hyperplasia on hysteroscopic examination.