The Communication Gap Between Specialists for Endometriosis Diagnosis and Management

Endometriosis Care Necessitates Active communication Between the Surgeons, Imaging experts, and Pathologists.

Key Points

Highlight

• The communication gap between the specialties which take part in the management of endometriosis may cause delays in the diagnosis and understanding of endometriosis.

Importance

• Strategies to help the surgeons, diagnostic imaging experts, and pathologists to get feedback from each other should be developed.
• With closed-loop two-way communication, the diagnostic process, patient outcomes, and professional relationships between specialists in endometriosis care may be improved.

What’s done here?

• This is an opinion article about insufficient communication between different professions that take a role in the management of endometriosis.
• The researchers stated their opinions about the communication gaps between gynecological surgeons, diagnostic imaging experts, and pathologists, provided the results of some
• group studies that have focused on this issue, and provided their hypothesis about what might happen if the bridges are built.

Key results

• As the visualization of endometriosis during surgery is becoming more important than its histopathological diagnosis for some, and vice-versa, the non-invasive methods to detect endometriosis by imaging experts have been gaining importance.
• Giving feedback to the imaging experts will result in their higher self-education in this field and help them gain confidence.
• Seeing the final pathology report will also help surgeons and imaging experts to compare their findings.

Lay Summary

An approach to help the different specialties which work as a team but lack sufficient communication in endometriosis management build better communication was proposed by Leonardi et al. from Australia and Canada in their opinion article which was published in April 2021 issue of "Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology".

The communication between the imaging experts and the surgeons has become very important as advanced endometriosis cases have increased. To be able to provide accurate non-invasive diagnostic results is important in the selection of patients who need endometriosis surgery. It may constitute a problem when the sonographer is not the surgeon. On the other hand, to understand its etiology, progression, and malignant nature, seeing the final pathology report of endometriosis cases is also very important in providing feedback to the surgeons and imaging experts. 

Diagnostic non-invasive imaging has been proven to be useful in ovarian, deep, and superficial endometriosis; however, there are few experts on this subject, and the interpretation may vary between them. A consensus opinion statement was given by a group called the "International Deep Endometriosis Analysis" to overcome the different approaches on the evaluation of the imaging in endometriosis. 

The authors recommend filling in the gap between the imaging experts which can be maintained by the surgeons gathering a copy of operative and histopathological reports and sending them to the imaging experts. They also add that standardized templates might be useful and time-saving.

A tool is being studied by a group that aims to provide radiologists with final pathology reports and it is thought that this might be a great opportunity for radiologists to advance their skills and learn new knowledge which all ends in improving patient care.

The authors conclude by saying that once a closed-loop two-way communication bridge is built, it will have gratifying consequences such as high-quality imaging, cost-effective health care, improved patient outcomes, a better relationship between professions, and new ideas and opportunities for research. 

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33491846/