Women with persistent pelvic pain frequently experience bladder, bowel or sexual dysfunction and many have associated pain in their pelvic floor muscles.
In Australia gold-standard diagnosis of pelvic pain when endometriosis is suspected is laparoscopy, a keyhole surgical procedure.
Researchers at the Women’s are studying a group of 150 women from pre-surgery to 12 months’ post-surgery, to investigate the relationship between pelvic floor muscle problems and pelvic pain in women with endometriosis.
Lead Researcher Associate Professor Helena Frawley said the research could help determine whether therapies, including physiotherapy and non-surgical, non-pharmacological treatments - provided either pre- or post-surgery - can reduce pain for affected women.
“The goal of our study is to accurately measure those problems – pelvic floor muscle pain, bowel, bladder and sexual dysfunction – in a group of women who have not previously had surgery,” A/Prof Frawley said.
“This will help us understand how these problems respond to surgical treatment, and whether there are differences in the experiences of women who are diagnosed with endometriosis at the time of surgery, compared with those who are not.
“If we can more clearly identify patients who have pelvic floor muscle pain, bowel, bladder and sexual dysfunction associated with their pelvic pain, with or without endometriosis, we may be able to initiate physiotherapy and other treatments, and prevent a cycle of surgery for a group of women experiencing persistent pelvic pain.”