Top Form Tuesday: Ultrasound to Determine if a Pelvic Mass is Persistent.

Dermoid Cyst of the Ovary (Benign Cystic Teratoma)

Most ovarian cysts come and go. In fact most ovarian cysts never make it to the attention of your health care provider. However, those ovarian cysts that are present on a serial set of ultrasounds become signficantly less likely to ever resolve without your gynecologist intervening. Persistent pelvic masses are not always ovarian cancers, in fact many will be the non-cancerous dermoid cyst shown in this picture.In a review of a study of ovarian masses seen on ultrasound in women over 50 a new study reported in the AJOG in November 2015 has shown that watching and repeating the ultrasound actually did better at determining if an ovarian mass was really cancerous. In this study patients were watched over 3 years. In the past it was thought that a mass of stable size over 6 months would not be a cancer. The theory was that ovarian masses either are cancerous or not cancerous and that masses that are not cancerous cannot evolve into a cancer. This has now been challenged and there is a group of experts that think ovarian masses will go through a progression from non-cancer to borderline tumors, and eventually turn invasive if not removed. Each patient is encouraged to speak to her own gyno if she has a suspected ovarian tumor so that she can get advice.

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Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously. It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...

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