Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Jon Ivar Einarsson, Harvard Medical School, United States
- Second opponent: Consultant Gynecologist Cecilia Bottomley, UCLH - University College London Hospitals, UK
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Guttorm Nils Haugen, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Anne Flem Jacobsen, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Professor II Marit Lieng, University of Oslo
Summary
Bowel endometriosis are benign lesions, mainly located on the rectosigmoid colon, due to inflammation and fibrosis caused by endometriosis. Five to 12% of women with endometriosis may have bowel endometriosis and can suffer from pelvic pain and gastrointestinal symptoms during menstruation. Surgical treatment may be warranted with risk of complications like anastomotic leakage, rectovaginal fistula, bowel stenosis and risk of a temporary stoma.
The aim of the thesis is to improve diagnosis and information to women with symptomatic endometriosis before bowel surgery and the surgical team to optimize treatment. Currently, there are no standardized methods to measure the distance between the bowel lesion to the anal verge (LAVD) and size of the bowel lesion. These two parameters are important in planning surgery and to assess complication risks. We propose standardizing measurements and investigated two diagnostic tools, namely transvaginal ultrasound (TVS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure LAVD and TVS to assess lesion size. We found that TVS has limited reproducibility for LAVD compared to reference standard. Surprisingly, MRI was not superior to TVS when measuring LAVD. TVS has good reproducibility for measuring lesion size.
Our research highlights the need to improve information to women requiring surgery and to our multi-disciplinary surgical team using non-invasive diagnostic tools.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.