Tactile Electrosurgical Ablation in Cases of Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding (TEA)

Abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) is any alteration in the pattern or volume of menstrual blood flow and heavy menstrual bleeding affects up to 30% of women at some time during their reproductive years. Abnormal menstruation can be due to conditions such as pregnancy complication uterine fibroids and adenomyosis, but in a large proportion of cases, the etiology is unclear, a condition generally referred to as dysfunctional uterine bleeding (DUB). Treatment options for DUB include symptomatic medical treatment or surgery, traditionally hysterectomy.

Hysteroscopically guided endometrial ablation methods have been shown to be effective and safe alternatives to hysterectomy for management of DUB. These methods require particular skills and experience and a long learning curve to be performed effectively and safely.

Through the past three decades DUB patients in Assiut university hospital were treated with either electrosurgical ablation or hysterectomy. When faced with hysteroscopic challenges during transcervical resection of the endometrium or rollerball coagulation, we used to shift to thermal balloon as backup method . However, expensive uterine balloon could not infrequently be afforded because of financial constrains and limited health resources . Therefore, another method was used as backup for hysteroscopic failures. It was first tried via insulating the conventional double-ended uterine curette then through a specially designed tactile electrosurgical ablation (TEA) probe.The technique of TEA is largely similar to the dilatation and curettage procedure both principally and practically. Hence, the basic requirements for its performance are the general awareness with electrosurgical principles and adequate experience in performing dilatation and curettage. TEA is done by specially designed tactile diathermy probe that carried the job of electrosurgical ablation without hysteroscopy or distension media first in an experimental session that clearly clarified the reproducibility of the depth of thermal damage and safety of the tactile electrosurgical ablator . Thereafter, TEA was successfully performed with satisfactory short and medium term outcomes for ten cases with DUB during an active, relentless bleeding attack. TEA is done under laparoscopic monitoring.

The aim of the present work is to present TEA as a simple, inexpensive, novel backup approach for treatment of DUB.