Pelvic floor parameters in women with gynecological endocrinopathies: a systematic review

Abstract

There is no pooled information about pelvic floor parameters (muscle assessment, disorders) of women with gynecologicaL endocrinopathies (eg. polycystic ovary syndrome, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, premature ovarian insufficiency). Given that, a systematic review was performed on the Pubmed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Scielo and PEDro databases regarding the main gynecological endocrinopathies [polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and hyperprolactinemia (HPL)] since their inception to April 2020. Data quality assessment was made by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) adapted for cross-sectional studies. A total of 4,272 results were retrieved from all databases. After excluding duplicate results and screening by title and abstract, nine studies were selected for quantitative analysis. Seven studies were performed with women with PCOS and two studies with POI. Women with PCOS presented a higher prevalence of urinary incontinence (UI) among obese women, a higher thickness of the levator ani muscle, and higher levels of muscle activity measured by surface electromyograph when compared to the control women. Regarding POI, there was no association with UI, FI, and POP. NOS found that the quality assessment for these selected studies ranged from 5 to 8. We concluded that higher pelvic muscle activity and volume were found in women with PCOS, with further studies needed to confirm this data. Literature was scant about POI, CAH, and HPL.