Management of endometriosis, especially for patients with fertility desire Past Meetings ISMIVS

Management of endometriosis, especially for patients with fertility desire

2022 APAGE-ISMIVS HIFU Series Webinars

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To continue the fascinating serial sessions of 2021 and also as a response to the cordial call from the global audience, the International Society of Minimally Invasive and Virtual Surgery (ISMIVS) and Asia-Pacific Association for Gynecologic Endoscopy and Minimally Invasive Therapy (APAGE) initiate 2022 HIFU Series Webinars (AIH 2022) in May.

AIH 2022 upgrades the program with hybrid session themes, which focuses on different gynecological diseases in 4 different episode, aiming to promote women’s health and preserve fertility through up-to-date scientific research, clinical practice and live demonstration from a line-up of world renowned physicians in the field of minimally invasive and noninvasive medicine.

The 1st episode of AIH 2022 “Management of endometriosis, especially for patients with fertility desire” kicked off on May 19th, with Dr Olarik Musigavong from Thailand and Dr Relly Yanuari Primariawan from Indonesia being the Session Chairs. Nearly 2000 audiences from 56 countries and regions joined this session online, making a strong start for AIH 2022.

Prof. Chyi-Long Lee, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of APAGE, discussed the therapy for endometriosis in reproductive women. He first indicated that endometriosis was found in 10% of women in reproductive age and about 176 million women suffer from the disease worldwide, then he explained the mechanisms of mild or minimal endometriosis and infertility based on the paper and how deep endometriosis impacts fertility, based on which he introduced several surgical techniques including “A to Z” of DIE treatment. At the end of his lecture, he emphasized that laparoscopy should remain the gold standard whenever DE surgery is indicated and continuous training would always be the last puzzle for reproductive surgery.

Prof. Lian Zhang, Secretary-General of ISMIVS, Director of Chongqing Haifu Hospital, compared ultrasound-guided HIFU (Usg-HIFU) and other surgical options for abdominal wall endometriosis (AWE). He first introduced the principle and indications of HIFU, showing some contrast enhanced MRIs of a patient with AWE before and after HIFU treatment. In addition, he indicated that there was no skin burn encountered, the pain did not recur during a mean follow-up of 18.7 months, and all treated nodules gradually shrank over time, then concluded that HIFU treatment was promising and could be used to treat AWE safely and the effectiveness of HIFU treatment for AWE was comparable with open surgery, with less adverse effects and short hospital stay.

Dr Min He, the Senior Training Lecturer, shared the learning curve of HIFU and her training experience in China, she indicated that basic requirements for clinicians to learn HIFU included specific medicine majors (ob-gyn, oncology, surgery, breast surgery, orthopaedics, medical imaging), image recognition ability (US/MRI), and understanding of HIFU. She also mentioned that factors affecting the learning curve of HIFU include ultrasonic image recognition ability, clinical experience, HIFU treatment related knowledge, number of cases and operation frequency. Since 2005, 2150 professionals have been trained in China’s HIFU training center.