Not all that long ago Asherman’s syndrome patients may have been told to forget about ever having a(nother) child. Treatment has come a long way with the advent of hysteroscopy, hormonal treatment, stents and adhesive barriers. It’s not surprising that before these were available, success rates were very low and often more damage was incurred from ‘treatment’ resulting in worse outcomes. One of the reasons for this is that some doctors used to treat Asherman’s syndrome by performing a blind D&C to break apart intrauterine adhesions they couldn’t even see. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would think that performing the same procedure as the one which usually causes the condition could fix things, but lots of doctors did- and some continue to do so with disastrous consequences.
Some doctors might still have the attitude that anyone whom they cannot treat successfully should give up hope, even if they are not highly skilled or experienced in the treatment of intrauterine adhesions. However, a new and equally detrimental view is being encouraged among sufferers: that treatment has come so far that anyone who is diagnosed stands a very good chance of conceiving and delivering a healthy baby (provided they go to the right doctors). While it’s true that some doctors have much more training, experience and expertise in the treatment of Asherman’s syndrome, the harsh reality is that the overall success rate is not above 50% (and lower for the moderate to severe cases)- even with the best doctors. If anyone tells you that there are doctors who have higher success rates with moderate to severe cases than 50%, they are either not being truthful or simply don’t know (or prefer not to accept) the reality.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but women need to be made aware of this fact. Not to crush any optimism, but to give realistic expectations, and perhaps to avoid the costs and heartbreak of ‘unexplained infertility’ following ‘successful’ treatment. There is a very fine line between giving encouragement and creating false hope. You may read of success stories, you may hear of women overcoming seemingly astonishing odds, and photos of women beaming with their babies, praising their ‘miracle’ doctors, but make no mistake: these are the faces and stories of less than 50% of women who are diagnosed with IUA and get treatment by the best doctors. But they do not reflect the reality for more than half of women diagnosed with Asherman’s syndrome. The latter are the women who fade into the background, the ones doctors and patients alike would like to forget about, or blame the lack of success on other reasons. Let us not underestimate the significance of the initial trauma underlying the Asherman’s syndrome. Some of us got a worse deal than the others. Worst of all, there is no clear way of predicting whether treatment will be successful or even knowing if it was successful. The only way to know is to try to conceive. If you do have a baby, your treatment was successful. If you don’t, your treatment may not have fully restored your fertility (or you have other causes of unexplained infertility). But let’s not exaggerate the likelihood of the latter- why would someone who was previously capable of getting pregnant suddenly have ‘unexplained infertility’ after having had Asherman’s syndrome? Fibrosis from Asherman’s syndrome can affect blood flow to the endometrium and reduce the chance of implantation or maintaining a pregnancy. I’m not saying one should not seek treatment. By all means, please do whatever is necessary to improve your chances of regaining your fertility! But don’t be too surprised if you don’t end up with a success story.
The attitude of the medical community is also to blame for encouraging the view that treatment is the best answer to the problem. For reasons which evade me, they seem to think it is more logical to subject all women to blind surgery causing Asherman's syndrome in a non-negligible proportion of them, and then to attempt surgical correction and hormonal therapy on those who do develop IUA in the hope that at most 50% of them will have a child (30-40% with moderate to severe IUA, 80% with mild IUA). Not to mention that these future pregnancies are at risk of serious complications, like placenta accreta, preterm delivery, intrauterine growth restriction, cervical incompetence etc. How logical is this? What is the advantage or logic in performing two (or more) expensive, difficult and potentially risky uterine surgeries- one which can cause damage, and one (or more) to repair the damage of the first surgery? Why not nip it at the bud and not cause damage to begin with?
Why not simply use drugs or hysteroscopy to empty the uterus, preventing scarring in the first place? When you consider that there are ways of emptying the uterus without blind surgery (either by using drugs like misoprostol or mifepristone, or visually guided hysteroscopy) the surgical approach makes no sense whatsoever. Is the approach of D&C followed by corrective surgery in the best interest of patients? Absolutely not.
In my next post I will include modern studies on outcomes of treatment as evidence.
Continued in Part II
No comments:
Post a Comment