Background: Thermal balloon endometrial ablation (TBEA) is increasingly being performed in the outpatient setting under local anaesthesia (LA) rather than in a daycase setting under general anaesthesia (GA). Our aim was to compare the post operative rescue analgesia requirements and duration of hospital stay in women undergoing outpatient (LA) and daycase (GA) TBEA.
Methods: Prospective observational study of consecutively recruited women who underwent outpatient (LA) TBEA (n=51) and daycase (GA) TBEA (n=50) over the same time period. Analgesia that was provided additional to the standard administered analgesic regimen was considered rescue analgesia. The main outcome measures were requirement for rescue analgesia and duration of hospital stay in both cohorts.
Result(s): LA compared to GA cohorts had shorter hospital stays (11 h [95% CI 9-13] vs. 17 h [95% CI 14-20]) and lower analgesia requirements. However, multivariate regression, correcting for all known confounders, showed that duration of stay was independent of setting for ablation or amount of rescue analgesia.
Conclusion(s): Duration of hospital stay is not entirely dependent on whether outpatient or daycase endometrial ablation is considered. This unexpected preliminary finding deserves to be validated in future confirmatory trials that compare outpatient and daycase treatments. We also discuss the confounding factors that should be considered when designing such trials.