A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Uterine Artery Embolization in the Treatment of Endometriosis

OBJECTIVE: To compare the efficacy of uterine artery embolization (UAE) with traditional methods for treating endometriosis. METHODS: The randomized controlled trials of uterine artery embolization and other medical treatments for endometriosis in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, China Journal Full-Text Database, Wanfang Database, VIP Database, and China Biomedical Literature Database were retrieved by computer. The search time was up to June 2022. The quality of articles was evaluated by Cochrane ROB 2.0, and meta-analysis was performed by Stata15.1 software. RESULTS: 7 studies were finally included. Meta-analysis showed that the serum CA125 level after uterine artery embolization was significantly lower than that in the control group (SMD = −0.85, 95%CI (−1.12, −0.59)], and the postoperative visual analogue scale (VAS) of dysmenorrhea was significantly lower than that in the control group (SMD = −1.86, 95%CI (−2.21, −1.50)) There was no significant difference in the effective rate, FSH level, E2 level, and LH level between the two groups. CONCLUSION: UAE can effectively reduce the VAS score of dysmenorrhea and serum CA125 level for treating endometriosis. However, due to the limitation of the quality of included articles, more large sample size and high quality RCTs are needed to provide stronger evidence-based medicine evidence for clinical practice.