The value of pre-operative treatment with GnRH analogues in women with submucous fibroids: a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal.

Their aim was to assess the value of pre-operative GnRH analogues for the resection of submucous fibroids.

Why It Was Studied

Submucous fibroids are common benign tumours responsible for menorrhagia, subfertility and miscarriage.

They can be readily removed by hysteroscopic transcervical resection of myoma (TCRM).

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

Women found to have submucous fibroids on three-dimensional saline infusion sonohysterography (3D SIS) were randomized to receive GnRH or placebo.

Following treatment patients underwent TCRM by a single operator blinded to the group allocation.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Because people in this Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, giving a reference point.

This was a prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial.

Women were followed up 6 weeks after their operation to ascertain resolution of symptoms.

The primary outcome measure of the study was completeness of fibroid resection.

Secondary outcome measures included the duration of the TCRM, the fluid deficit recorded at TCRM, the resolution of symptoms post-operatively and the number of subsequent fibroid related operations.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Blood Loss, Surgical, Blood Volume, Body Fluids, Combined Modality Therapy, Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone and Goserelin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal.

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2010 (Human reproduction (Oxford, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.