Patient-completed or symptom-based screening tools for endometriosis: a scoping review.

Patient-centered endometriosis screening

Key Points

Highlight:

• The clinical presentation of endometriosis is variable, and symptoms may overlap with those of other benign conditions: differential diagnosis is challenging.
• A patient-completed screening questionnaire could potentially facilitate the recognition of endometriosis-related symptoms, reducing diagnostic delays.

Importance:

• Diagnostic delay is a common problem in endometriosis and identifying endometriosis as early as possible may help to avoid subsequent sequelae.

What's done here:

• A literature review was performed through a PubMed search.
• The purpose is to identify and evaluate existing screening questionnaires and/ or symptom-based predictive models as screening tools for endometriosis in adult women.
• The studies related to endometriosis, deep infiltrating endometriosis, and organ-specific endometriosis studies evaluated separately.

Key Results:

• 16 studies were found that fulfilled predefined criteria. Most utilized required information to be completed by physicians, such as imaging and laboratory studies results and had diagnostic purposes.
• Only 1 study evaluated a questionnaire that was solely patient-completed.  
• Most studies focused on diagnosis versus screening the presence of endometriosis, and validation for use as a screening tool was lacking. 

Reference:  Patient-completed or symptom-based screening tools for endometriosis: a scoping review. Surrey E, Carter CM, Soliman AM, Khan S, DiBenedetti DB, Snabes MC. Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2017 May 25. Review. PMID: 28547097

Lay Summary

Endometriosis affects approximately 10% of women in reproductive age. Its clinical presentation is variable, and symptoms, such as chronic pelvic pain, may overlap with those of other benign conditions, making differential diagnosis challenging. Therefore, a patient-completed screening questionnaire could potentially facilitate the recognition of endometriosis-related symptoms, reducing diagnostic delays.

The aim of this literature review was to identify and evaluate existing screening questionnaires and/ or symptom-based predictive models which could be potentially used as screening tools for endometriosis in adult women. The authors conducted a PubMed search and identified 16 studies that fulfilled predefined criteria. Most of the questionnaires utilized required information to be completed by physicians, such as imaging and laboratory studies results and had diagnostic purposes.

The authors concluded that existing symptom-based tools have limited clinical utility and endorse the need for a validated, brief and uncomplicated patient-completed screening tool for endometriosis. This sort of initiatives can be particularly interesting to engage patients in their diagnosis and treatment, especially in a scenario of a growing number of patients that perform symptom-related web searches.

Research Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28547097