Misoprostol Administration Before Hysteroscopy Procedures – A Retrospective Analysis

Objective To evaluate the use of misoprostol prior to hysteroscopy procedures regarding technical ease, the presence of side effects, and the occurrence of complications. Methods This is a retrospective, observational, analytical, case-control study, with the review of medical records of 266 patients followed-up at the Gynecological Videoendoscopy Sector of the Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto of the Universidade de São Paulo (HCFMRP – USP, in the Portuguese acronym) from 2014 to 2019, comparing 133 patients who used the drug before the procedure with 133 patients who did not. Results The occurrence of postmenopausal uterine bleeding was the main indication for hysteroscopy and revealed a statistical difference between groups ( p < 0.001), being present in 93.23% of the patients in the study group and in 69.7% of the patients in the control group . Only 2 patients (1.5%) in the study group reported adverse effects. Although no statistical differences were observed regarding the occurrence of complications during the procedure ( p = 0.0662), a higher total number of complications was noted in the group that used misoprostol ( n = 7; 5.26%) compared with the group that did not use the drug ( n = 1; 0.75%), a fact that is clinically relevant. When evaluating the ease of the technique (measured by the complete performance of all steps of the hysteroscopy procedure), it was verified that although there was no difference between groups ( p = 0.0586), the control group had more than twice as many incompletely performed procedures ( n = 17) when compared with the group that used misoprostol previously ( n = 8), which is also clinically relevant. Conclusion The use of misoprostol prior to hysteroscopy in our service indicated that the drug can facilitate the performance of the procedure, but not without side effects and presenting higher complication rates.