Endometrial cancer: Diagnostic methods in postmenopausal vaginal bleeding

Abstract

Postmenopausal vaginal bleeding (PMB) is the leading symptom of endometrial cancer. More than 70% of patients with endometrial cancer are postmenopausal. Despite PMB as a leading symptom in diagnosis of endometrial cancer, PMB could be caused by some benign processes in endometrium such as hyperplasia and focal endometrial disease, such as a polyp. The golden standard for histological evaluation of the endometrium is curettage. Transvaginal ultrasound (TVS) and measurement of endometrium thickness is also one of the favored methods in the last decade. Sonographic imaging of the endometrium can be extremely helpful, because endometrial cancer is nearly always associated with thickening and heterogeneity of the endometrium except in case of atrophy-associated adenocarcinoma of the endometrium, which is not associated with thickening. Hysteroscopy found place as a favored method in diagnosis of focal endometrial lesions. Saline infusion sonohysterography (SIS) is a relatively new imaging procedure. The SIS will show whether the endometrium is diffusely thickened, in which case curettage would be the next step, or focally thickened, in which case hysteroscopy with biopsy would be the next step. Combination of some diagnostic procedures, such as TVS, SIS, hysteroscopy, endometrial biopsy and curettage, should decrease false positive and false negative results which may affect the correct diagnosis and treatment.