NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who have undergone laparoscopic surgery for endometrioma have a reduced risk of recurrence when they take low-dose oral contraceptives, a Korean team reports in Human Reproduction published online October 11.

Dr. DooSeok Choi and colleagues at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea note that conservative laparoscopic surgery is the treatment of choice for endometriotic cyst, and GnRH agonist treatment to suppress estrogen is often offered postoperatively to reduce recurrence. This effect might be maintained by oral contraceptives, the authors point out, but the strategy has not been widely investigated.

They therefore looked at outcomes in 362 women who were treated for ovarian endometrioma and were offered cyclic low-dose, monophasic oral contraceptives after completing 6 months of postoperative GnRH agonist injections.

More than half the women (187) declined while 175 used cyclic oral contraceptives continuously or intermittently during a median follow-up of 35 months.