Publication:

Ten-year review of the clinical presentation and treatment outcome of Asherman’s syndrome in university of Maiduguri teaching hospital, Borno State, Nigeria

Background Asherman’s syndrome (AS) is an important gynaecological disorder characterized by a menstrual abnormality (hypomenorrhea/amenorrhea) and infertility that is usually caused by activities that traumatize the endometrium. Objective of current study was to determine the prevalence, clinical presentation and treatment outcome of Asherman’s syndrome in our hospital.

Methods A retrospective review of patients with Asherman’s syndrome managed at the University of Maiduguri Teaching hospital over 10 years (January 2008 to December 2017). Data about the patients were obtained and analyzed using Microsoft office excel 2007 and SPSS version 25 (IBM SPSS, Statistics) to generate descriptive statistics (frequencies, ratio and percentages) which were presented as tables.

Results The prevalence of AS is 5.3%. Most of the patients were in the 25-34 age group (69.1%) and the majority (94.5%) were married. Dilatation and curettage (D & C) constituted the commonest risk factor for Asherman’s syndrome (21/55, 38.2%) and infertility alone (29, 52.7%), and hypomenorrhea with infertility 10 (18.2%) were the commonest presentation. Twenty-five percent of the patients (14/55) achieved normal menses and 11 (20%) achieved pregnancy following treatment.

Conclusions AS is not uncommon in our environment. D&C is the commonest risk factor and the patients usually present with infertility and hypomenorrhea.