Quality of life of patients with bilateral oophorectomy before the age of 45 for the treatment of endometriosis

Introduction: The study aimed to evaluate the quality of life and associated factors among women who underwent bilateral oophorectomy (BO) before the age of 45 for the treatment of deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE). Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in 52 women who were treated from January 2014 to December 2019 in 2 public and private DIE surgical centers in Toulouse. All women answered the Menopausal Quality of Life questionnaire (MenQOL). Mean MenQOL scores were compared according to age at BO, smoking, BMI, level of education, delay between BO and the survey and post-BO hormone replacement therapy (HRT) using Mann-Whitney and Anova tests. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used to analyze the correlations between all the MEnQOL domain scores and clinical variables. The variables associated with the outcomes in univariate analyses with p < 0.2 were jointly evaluated using multiple linear regression. Results: The mean age at the time of the survey was 43.4 +/- 3.4 years while the mean age at BO was 40.5 +/- 3.4 years. The mean MenQOL score was 3.96 (+/- 1.45), with the highest scores in the sexual (4.77) and vasomotor (4.01) domains. BMI and smoking were independently and significantly associated with the mean total MenQOL score, all domain scores being significantly higher in overweight/obese women. A trend towards worse MenQOL scores was found in patients who had BO before the age of 41. We did not find any difference according to whether or not they were taking HRT. Conclusion: This is a first study evaluating quality of life in a specific population of oophorectomized women under the age of 45 using MenQOL for DIE. While BO is effective in relieving pain in women with severe DIE, the induced premature menopause is associated with a poor quality of life, which deserves further attention.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the quality of life and associated factors among women who underwent bilateral oophorectomy for the treatment of deep infiltrating endometriosis before the age of 45. The results showed that although oophorectomy can relieve pain in severe DIE, premature menopause is associated with poor quality of life.