THE EVALUATION OF PELVIC MASS

Introduction: In female reproductive tract the differential diagnosis of pelvic mass is quite vari- able because abnormality may arise from gynaecological or non gynaecological origin. The pre- sent study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of clinical examination and abdomino-pelvic ultrasonography and find out the frequency of malignancy in patients diagnosed with pelvic mass. It was a cross sectional prospective study of one year duration. Materials and Methods: Cohort study design on 107 patients with complaints suggestive of pelvic mass underwent clinical examination including history, abdomino-pelvic examination followed by abdominal ultrasound were evaluated. Only the patients who underwent laparoscopy or laparotomy were included in the study. Final diagnosis was correlated with histopathological diagnosis. Results: Overall sensitivity of clinical evaluation was 50% while ultrasound was 80% sensitive in diagnosing the type of pelvic mass. Positive predictive value of clinical examination 71.4% was higher than ultrasound 66.6%. Frequency of gynaecological malignancy was 84%, while 1.9% malignancies were of non gynaecological origin. Conclusion: Our study has supported the view that clinical evaluation and ultrasound are initial modalities and to increase the sensitivity for definitive diagnosis other imaging facilities and tumor marker are needed.