Recurrent miscarriage Archives - Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia

PURPOSE: to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of hysterosalpingography (HSG) and transvaginal sonography (TVS) in terms of detecting uterovaginal anomalies in women with a history of recurrent miscarriage. METHODS: eighty patients who presented two or more consecutive miscarriages were submitted to HSG, TVS and hysteroscopy (HSC). The following diagnoses were considered separately: uterine malformations, intrauterine adhesions and polypoid lesions. Hysteroscopy was the gold standard. The matching among the different methods was evaluated by the kappa coefficient and its significance was tested. The significance level was 0.05 (alpha=5%). Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, with 95% of statistical confidence interval, were calculated. RESULTS: uterovaginal anomalies were detected in 29 (36.3%) patients: 11 (13.7%) were uterine malformations, 17 (21.3%) intrauterine adhesions and one (1.3%) a polypoid lesion. The global matching between HSG and HSC was 85.5%, while between TVS and HSC it was only 78.7%. The best accuracy of HSG appeared to be for the diagnosis of uterine malformations and intrauterine adhesions (diagnostic accuracy of 97.5 and 95%, respectively). For the diagnosis of polypoid lesions, HSG had a diagnostic accuracy of only 92.5%, due to the low rate of positive predictive value (14.3%). TVS had a worse accuracy for all diagnoses, 93.7% for the diagnosis of uterine malformations and 85% for intrauterine adhesions, due to low sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS: histerosalpingography showed a good diagnostic accuracy for the diagnosis of uterine cavity diseases. TVS had good specificity, but with low sensitivity.