Significant improvement in vaginal health before and after surgery for pelvic organ prolapse
FRIDAY, March 31, 2017 (HealthDay News) — For postmenopausal women undergoing surgical treatment for pelvic organ prolapse, vaginal estriol gel is associated with improvement in vaginal health, according to a study published online March 27 in Menopause.
Salvatore Caruso, M.D., from the University of Catania in Italy, and colleagues randomized women to receive daily vaginal gel containing 50 µg estriol for 12 weeks (Group A, 38 women) or no estrogen treatment (Group B, 37 women). One week after vaginal surgery, group A was re-randomized to Group A1 receiving estriol gel for 12 weeks and group A2 discontinuing treatment.
The researchers found that group A had improvement in all aspects of vaginal health before surgery versus baseline (P < 0.001). Group A1 experienced further improvement 13 weeks after surgery compared with the presurgery estriol treatment (P < 0.01), while group A2 experienced a worsening of vaginal health compared with intragroup presurgery estriol treatment (P < 0.01) and compared with intergroup surgical estriol treatment (P < 0.05). Improvement in quality of life was seen for women only after surgery, with or without estriol treatment (P < 0.01 and 0.05, respectively). There was no change in sexual function of participants on estriol before surgery; however, improvement was noted after surgery for participants on estriol and not on estriol (P < 0.001 and 0.01, respectively).
“Estriol vaginal gel (0.005 percent) administration significantly improved the vaginal health of natural postmenopausal women before and after vaginal surgery,” the authors write.
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