The role of pelvic floor ultrasound correlated with pelvic organ prolapse quantification in the assessment of anterior and apical compartments of pelvic organ prolapse

Abstract

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a gynecological disease significantly associated with older age. A higher prevalence of women with symptomatic POP showed physical and emotional distress, negatively affecting their quality of life (QoL). The most widespread tool used is the prolapse quantification system (POP-Q) of the International Continence Society (ICS). The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of ultrasound (U/S) compared to POP-Q for the detection and quantification of POP in the anterior (urinary bladder) and apical (cervix/vaginal vault) compartments of the pelvic floor in Egyptian women. The current study revealed that among 83 women, 53 had POP with a mean age of 50.83 years, 96.2% had anterior compartment prolapse (either alone or with apical compartment prolapse), 52% had apical compartment prolapse (either alone or with anterior compartment prolapse), 47.2% had anterior compartment prolapse only, and 3.7% had apical compartment prolapse only. There was a strong agreement (almost linear) between (POP-Q) and U/S in detecting significant pelvic organ prolapse in the anterior compartment (Kappa value 0.925, P < 0.001) and the apical compartment (Kappa value 0.945 and P < 0.001). With higher value of sensitivity and specificity, our study assigned significant anterior compartment prolapse using a cutoff value of 0 for point Ba of POP-Q and −11.5 for bladder neck descent at valsalva using U/S. Pelvic floor ultrasound provides general and detailed anatomical overview of the pelvic floor as well as detection and assessment of the POP in anterior and middle compartments.