Prevalence of Infections After In-Office Hysteroscopy in Premenopausal and Postmenopausal Women

Abstract

Study objective: To estimate the incidence of infection after diagnostic and operative hysteroscopic procedures performed in an in-office setting with different distension media (saline solution or CO₂).

Design: Prospective, multicenter, observational study (Canadian Task Force classification II-2).

Setting: Tertiary women's health centers.

Patients: A total of 42,934 women who underwent hysteroscopy between 2015 and 2017.

Interventions: Of the 42,934 patients evaluated, 34,248 underwent a diagnostic intervention and 8686 underwent an operative intervention; 17,973 procedures used CO₂ and 24,961 used saline solution as a distension medium. Patients were contacted after the procedure to record postprocedure symptoms suggestive of infection, including 2 or more of the following signs occurring within the 3 weeks after hysteroscopy: fever; lower abdominal pain; uterine, adnexal, or cervical motion tenderness; purulent leukorrhea; vaginal discharge or itchiness; and dysuria. Vaginal culture, clinical evaluation, transvaginal ultrasound, and histological evaluation were completed to evaluate symptoms.

Measurements and main results: Operative hysteroscopies comprised polypectomies (n = 7125; 82.0%), metroplasty (n = 731; 15.0%), myomectomy (n = 378; 7.8%), and tubal sterilization (n = 194; 4.0%). Twenty-five of the 42,934 patients (0.06%) exhibited symptoms of infection, including 24 patients (96%) with fever, 11 (45.8%) with fever as a single symptom, 7 (29.2%) with fever with pelvic pain, and 10 (41.7%) with fever with dysuria. In 5 patients with fever and pelvic pain, clinical examination and transvaginal ultrasound revealed monolateral or bilateral tubo-ovarian abscess. In these patients, histological examination from surgical specimens revealed the presence of endometriotic lesions.

Conclusion: The present study suggests that routine antibiotic prophylaxis is not necessary before hysteroscopy because the prevalence of infections following in-office hysteroscopy is low (0.06%).

Keywords: Antibiotics; Endometrioma; Endometriosis; Hysteroscopy; Infection; Tubo-ovarian abscess.