Assessment of paraclinical characteristics in peri- and postmenopausal bleeding women: is there a correlation between hemoglobin levels and ultrasonic indices?

OBJECTIVES: Vaginal bleeding is a common symptom of uterine intracavitary pathologies in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, which leads to anemia. However, findings regarding the relationship between hemoglobin level and sonographic parameters remain limited. The aim of this study was (1) to investigate the histopathological findings of uterine intracavitary pathologies, hemoglobin concentrations and basic sonographic parameters, and (2) to evaluate their correlation among Vietnamese women with perimenopausal and postmenopausal bleeding. METHODS: This was a prospective study at Hue University Hospital and Hue Central Hospital from June 2016 to June 2019. The study enrolled 150 women older than 40 years with abnormal uterine bleeding. All patients underwent blood count testing and transvaginal ultrasound. RESULTS: Moderate to severe anemia was observed at a higher frequency in women with perimenopausal bleeding (58.1%) than postmenopausal bleeding (10.0%). The most common abnormality resulting in severe anemia was endometrial hyperplasia (70.8%), which was followed by endometrial cancer (4.2%). The uterine size, intrauterine mass, and endometrial thickness differed substantially between the benign and malignant groups. The study found significantly a weak negative correlation between hemoglobin concentration (g/L) and uterinelength, the anteroposterior diameter of uterine corpus in the overall study (r = −0.37, r = −0.32, respectively, P < 0.05); a moderate negativecorrelation between hemoglobin concentration and the largest diameter of intracavitary mass‑shaped lesion in the perimenopausal group (r = −0.4, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Overall, histopathological results, hemoglobin concentration and basic sonographic parameters should be combined in evaluating intrauterine abnormalities in women with perimenopausal and postmenopausal bleeding. Ultrasonic indices of uterine size may be used to determine the prognosis of anemia in uterine intracavitary pathologies. However, further studies are needed to confirm these findings.