Endometrial carcinoma in asymptomatic post-menopausal women with a thickened endometrium and its influencing factors - A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: A thickened endometrium upon trans-vaginal ultrasound in asymptomatic post-menopausal women always poses a clinical dilemma. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the frequency of endometrial malignancies by histopathological examination and identify the associated factors influencing the thickened endometrium in asymptomatic post-menopausal women. METHODS: In trans-vaginal ultrasonography, we enrolled 72 asymptomatic post-menopausal women with a thickened endometrium (>5 mm). Dilatation and curettage were performed for all cases, and the specimen was sent for histopathological examination. According to the data distribution, all the continuous variables were stated as mean ± standard deviation/median (inter-quartile range), categorical variables were expressed in frequency, and percentage will be compared using the Chi-square test/Fisher exact test. RESULTS: In our study, most of the women were multipara. The age of post-menopausal women ranged from 46 to 68 years, and the mean duration of menopause was 8.10. The most common histological findings were benign in 72.22% of the cases. We identified pre-malignant and malignant lesions of the endometrium in 18.05% and 9.72% of the cases, respectively. To predict the condition of the lesion, we noticed no definite cut-off value of endometrial thickness to indicate the state of the lesion. We observed that none of the patient’s characteristics showed a significant difference with a thickened endometrium. CONCLUSION: We observed an increased frequency of endometrial pathology irrespective of the presence or absence of risk factors. The result of this study is justified enough for the need of further evaluation of a thickened endometrium in asymptomatic post-menopausal women.