Concordance between hysteroscopic impression and endometrial histopathological diagnosis.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of hysteroscopic impression for diagnosing benign and malignant endometrial pathology.

METHOD

This is a retrospective cross-sectional study involving case records of 412 patients who underwent hysteroscopy with diagnostic dilatation and curettage (D&C) at the University of Malaya Medical Centre from January 2009 to August 2011, and cases with records of previous hysteroscopies (2007-2008). Sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values, likelihood ratios (LR) and post-test probabilities of hysteroscopy were calculated. D&C was set as the 'gold standard'.

RESULTS

Hysteroscopy and histology results were concordant in 366 (88.8%) subjects. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV were high exceeding 80%. Moderate sensitivity for endometrial hyperplasia (64.4%, 95% CI=49.8%-76.8%) with moderate PPV for malignancy (62.1%, 95% CI=44.0%-77.3%) due to misdiagnosing hyperplasia as malignant was observed. PPV for leiomyoma was reduced (83.3%, 95% CI=60.8%-94.2%) despite 100% sensitivity, due to D&C false negatives. High positive LR (>10) and low negative LR (<0.2) were observed generally except for endometrial hyperplasia (0.36). Hysteroscopy had moderate positive post-test probability for malignancy (0.62) but effective in ruling out malignancy (negative post-test probability=0.00).

CONCLUSION

Hysteroscopy is accurate for diagnosing focal and malignant endometrial pathology but only moderate for hyperplasia. Endometrial sampling is recommended for all cases especially when suspecting hyperplasia or malignancy.