Introduction: Hysteroscopy is considered the 'gold standard' procedure in assessing uterine pathology however it is more expensive and invasive method than ultrasonography. An alternative to the diagnostic hysteroscopy is sonohysterography.
Aim: To evaluate the usefulness of sonohysterography in detecting endometrial polyps in female patients diagnosed with infertility.
Material and methods: We compared the results of sonohysterographic examinations with hysteroscopy combined with histopathological findings.
Results: All the 241 sonohysterography examinations were performed successfully. No complications were observed. Forty-three hysteroscopies (17.8%) and six sonohysterography examinations (2.5%) were performed in short total intravenous anesthesia because of a low pain threshold of the patients. After hysteroscopic resection polyps were diagnosed in 74 (30.7%) patients. In 72 cases both saline infusion sonography (sonohysterography, SIS) examination and hysteroscopy confirmed the occurrence of an endometrial polyp. In 7 examinations (4.2%) the diagnosed polyp was not confirmed in sonohysterography (false-positive results). Two SIS procedures (2.7%) did not confirm the occurrence of the polyp (false-negative results). Sensitivity, specificity accuracy and error of sonohysterography in detecting endometrial polyps were 97.3%, 95.8% 96.2% and 3.7%, respectively. Positive and negative predictive values were 91.1% (PPV) and 98.7% (NPV). The agreement between SIS and hysteroscopy combined with histopathological examination was very high (K = 0.91).
Conclusions: Sonohysterography is a safe and highly sensitive and specific method used in diagnostics of endometrial polyps. Its results closely correspond to those obtained in a hysteroscopic examination and histopathological analysis.
Keywords: endometrial polyp; hysteroscopy; infertility; saline infusion sonography; sonohysterography; uterus.