Chronic pelvic pain syndrome-related diagnoses in an outpatient office setting - Abstract

Background:Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is a syndrome composed of one or more pain diagnoses arising from pelvic organs.

Although the prevalence of many individual diagnoses has been determined in a variety of settings, the concurrent assessment of overlapping pain syndromes in an outpatient gynecology clinic, which would be most pertinent to practitioners, has not been reported.

Methods: Patients waiting to be seen in an outpatient general gynecology clinic completed a survey composed of validated instruments for different pain diagnoses. Cyclic and constant CPP, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), interstitial cystitis (IC), and vulvodynia (VVD) were assessed.

Results: In the 498 completed surveys, 24% of patients met at least one criterion for CPP, and of these, 23% also met criteria for a second diagnosis. Of all patients, 15% reported symptoms consistent with IBS, 6% with IC, and 5% with VVD. Cyclic CPP was found in 20%, and of these patients, 30% had at least one other CPP-related diagnosis.

Discussion: Although limited by its design as a survey, this study demonstrates that CPP frequently (between 30 and 43%) occurs with other pain syndromes. Clinicians should be prepared to evaluate nongynecologic causes of pelvic pain.

Written by:
Fenton BW, Brobeck L, Witten E, Von Gruenigen V. Are you the author?
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Summa Health System, Akron, Ohio, USA.

Reference: Gynecol Obstet Invest. 2012 May 9. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1159/000336768

PubMed Abstract
PMID: 22571935

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