Endometrial polyps are one of the most common pathological conditions in gynecology. Hysteroscopy is the gold standard for the diagnosis and treatment of endometrial polyps. The purpose of this multicenter, retrospective study was to compare patients' pain perception during an operative hysteroscopic endometrial polypectomy in an outpatient setting with two different hysteroscopes (rigid and semirigid) and to identify some clinical and intraoperative characteristics that are related to worsening pain during the procedure. We included women that underwent, at the same time as an diagnostic hysteroscopy, the complete removal of an endometrial polyp (using the see-and-treat strategy) without any kind of analgesia. A total of 166 patients were enrolled, of which 102 patients underwent a polypectomy with a semirigid hysteroscope and 64 patients underwent the procedure with a rigid hysteroscope. No differences were found during the diagnostic step; on the contrary, after the operative procedure, a statistically significant greater degree of pain was reported when the semirigid hysteroscope was used. Cervical stenosis and menopausal status were risk factors for pain both in the diagnostic step and in the operative one. Our results confirm that operative hysteroscopic endometrial polypectomy in an outpatient setting is an effective, safe, and well-tolerated procedure and indicate that it might be better tolerated if a rigid rather than semirigid instrument is used.
Keywords: VAS score; endometrial polyps; operative hysteroscopy; outpatient hysteroscopy.