Abstract
Background
Adenomyosis is a benign disorder characterized by the presence of ectopic endometrial glands and stroma within the myometrium. The main clinical manifestations of adenomyosis are dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia, and infertility, which affect patients’ quality of life. Recently, with advancements in imaging techniques, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasonography have become the main diagnostic tools for adenomyosis. In addition to the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of adenomyosis, ultrasonography can also be used to evaluate the severity of adenomyosis. The emergence of new techniques, such as elastography and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS), has significantly improved the accuracy of ultrasound-based diagnosis of adenomyosis. These two imaging tools can also be used for the differential diagnosis of adenomyosis and the evaluation of treatment efficacy after medication or ablation procedure.
Objective
we review the efficacy of ultrasonography as a diagnostic tool for adenomyosis. We also aim to introduce the potential of ultrasound imaging in the evaluation of the severity of this disease, as well as the application of elastography and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in its diagnosis.
Results and Conclusion
Our findings reveal the potential value of ultrasonography combined with elastography and/or CEUS as medication guidance and efficacy evaluation tools in the long-term management of adenomyosis.
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Data Availability
Data availability is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study
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This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFC2704002), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82071621), and Major Basic Research of Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant No. ZR2021ZD34).
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Ren, Q., Yuan, M. & Wang, G. Role of ultrasonography in the evaluation of disease severity and treatment efficacy in adenomyosis. Arch Gynecol Obstet 309, 363–371 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-023-07034-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-023-07034-4