Purpose: To evaluate the occurrence of anxiety in women attending a colposcopic examination within the new cervical cancer screening in Germany. Methods: One hundred and fifty-six patients were asked to fill out Spielbergers STAI inventory form prior to their colposcopic examination. For the statistical analysis, a two by two between-group design was applied including the following group factors: the repeat factors included patients, who presented to our centre of dysplasia for the first time (new) and patients who have had an examination in our centre before (repeat). Further, the factor diagnosis included two groups: first, patients with cervical dysplasia and second, patients with vulva diseases. Results: The analysis of the STAI results showed that patients presenting with cervical dysplasia for the first time had the highest levels of anxiety, directly followed by new patients in the vulva group. The ANOVA revealed a main effect of the repeat factor, F(1,140) = 7.53, p = 0.007. There was no significant effect of diagnosis. Conclusion: Regardless of the diagnosis, patients being transferred for a colposcopy within the cervical cancer screening program for the first time have very high anxiety levels. The prospect of a potentially painful examination seems to be a key factor. Only a scientific evaluation of the new cervical cancer screening will be able to show if the rising numbers of colposcopic examinations is really worth the risk of exposing so many more women to the emotional distress of a colposcopy.

Background/Objectives: Endometriosis is a chronic gynecological disorder characterized by ectopic endometrial-like tissue. The symptoms of this disease negatively affect the patient’s quality of life, both physically and mentally. This study aims to identify key factors impacting health-related quality of life in endometriosis patients. Methods: A total of 175 patients from the Endometriosis Centre of the RWTH Aachen University Hospital were assessed using the German version of the EHP-30. The EHP is a patient self-report tool used to measure the wide range of impacts that endometriosis can have on women’s lives (affecting pain levels, leading to feelings of powerlessness and a loss of control, and affecting their emotional well-being, social support, and self-image). Multivariate linear regression and random forest analyses were performed to evaluate predictors of health-related quality of life, focusing on demographic characteristics, pain severity, endometriosis symptoms and planned procedures. Results: Key factors that have a significant negative impact on QoL include higher pain scores, dysuria, and persistent endometriosis. Higher pain scores negatively affect the EHP-30 pain (p < 0.0001), control and powerlessness (p < 0.0001) and emotional well-being (p < 0.01) scores. Dysuria has a negative effect on pain (p < 0.001), control and powerlessness (p < 0.001), emotional well-being (p < 0.05), and social support (p < 0.05). Persistent endometriosis was negatively associated with pain (p < 0.01), control and powerlessness (p < 0.01), and social support. Previous endometriosis surgery has a positive effect on the EHP-30 scores for pain, control and powerlessness, emotional well-being, and self-image (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Our study highlights the multifactorial impact of endometriosis on health-related QoL. Personalized treatments focusing on pain management, emotional support and social interventions are crucial to improve patient outcomes.

Ovarian cancer is the second most fatal gynecological cancer. Early detection, which could be achieved through widespread screening, has not yet had an impact on mortality. The aim of our pilot study was to investigate the expression of miRNAs analyzed by a human miRNA microarray chip in urine and serum of patients with ovarian cancer. We analyzed three serum and three urine samples from healthy donors and five serum and five urine samples from patients with ovarian cancer taken at first diagnosis, before any treatment. We selected the seven miRNAs with the highest expression fold change in the microarray chip (cancer vs. control) in urine and serum, for validation by qPCR. We were able to validate two of the seven miRNAs in serum. In contrast to these findings, we were able to validate all of the top seven miRNAs identified in urine using qPCR. The top seven miRNAs in urine identified by microarray chip showed significantly greater differences in expression between patients with ovarian cancer and healthy donors compared to serum. Based on our finding, we can suggest that urine as a biomaterial is more suitable than serum for miRNA profiling by microarray chip in the search for new biomarkers in ovarian cancer.

Background: Endometriosis is a chronic gynecological condition marked by ectopic endometrial-like tissue, leading to inflammation, pain, and infertility. Diagnosis is often delayed by up to 10 years. Identifying non-invasive biomarkers could facilitate earlier detection. MicroRNAs, known for their stability in biological fluids and role in disease processes, have emerged as potential diagnostic tools. This pilot study investigated whether serum miRNA profiling can differentiate endometriosis from other causes of chronic pelvic pain. Methods: Serum samples from 52 patients (36 with laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis and 16 controls) treated for chronic pelvic pain at a University Endometriosis Centre were analyzed. High-throughput miRNA sequencing was performed. Feature selection reduced 4285 miRNAs to the 20 most informative MiRNAs. Machine learning models, including logistic regression, decision tree, random forest, and support vector machine, were trained and evaluated. Results: Among the tested machine learning models, support vector machine achieved the best overall performance (accuracy 0.71, precision 0.80), while logistic regression and random forest showed the highest AUC values (0.84 and 0.81, respectively), indicating strong diagnostic potential of serum miRNA profiling. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of using serum miRNA profiling combined with machine learning for the non-invasive classification of endometriosis. The identified miRNA signature shows strong diagnostic potential and could contribute to earlier and more accurate detection of the disease.

Introduction Hypothermia is defined as a decrease in body core temperature to below 36 °C. If intraoperative heat-preserving measures are omitted, a patientʼs temperature will fall by 1 – 2 °C. Even mild forms of intraoperative hypothermia can lead to a marked increase in morbidity and mortality. The temperature of the insufflation gas is usually disregarded in the treatment and prevention of hypothermia. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of body-temperature and humidified CO₂ on the intraoperative temperature profile and avoidance of hypothermia in laparoscopic surgery. Material and Methods In this retrospective, non-randomised case control study, 110 patients whose planned operation lasted at least 60 minutes were identified from 376 patients by means of an algorithm. Dry (20% humidity) CO₂ at room temperature was insufflated in 51 patients (control group). 59 patients were insufflated with humidified (98% humidity) CO₂ at body temperature (37 °C) (study group). These conditions were achieved with the HumiGard MR860 Surgical Humidification System (Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Limited, Auckland, New Zealand). The intraoperative temperature profile was evaluated by measurements every 10 minutes. Statistical analysis was performed with IBM^® SPSS^® Statistics 23.0.0. Results The intraoperative temperature in the control group fell steadily, while a continuous rise in temperature was observed in the study group. Warming was demonstrated in the study group with a start-end temperature difference of 0.09 °C, which differed significantly from the control group, in which it was − 0.09 °C (p = 0.011). The middle-end difference of 0.11 °C showed even higher significance in favour of the warmed gas (p = 0.003). The rate of hypothermia at the start of the operation fell from 50 to 36% in the study group and increased from 36 to 42% in the control group. Conclusion These results show that the use of body-temperature and humidified insufflation gas for laparoscopy can help to prevent intraoperative hypothermia.

Background: Hypothermia is defined as a decrease in body core temperature to below 36 °C. If intraoperative heat-preserving measures are omitted, a patient’s temperature will fall by 1 – 2 °C. Even mild forms of intraoperative hypothermia can lead to a marked increase in morbidity and mortality. Using warm and humidified gas insufflation in laparoscopy may help in the maintenance of intraoperative body temperature.Methods: In this prospective randomized controlled study, we investigated effects of temperature and humidity of the insufflation gas on intra- and postoperative temperature management. 150 patients undergoing gynecologic laparoscopic surgery were randomly assigned to either insufflation with non-warmed, non-humidified CO₂with forced air warming blanket (AIR), humidified warm gas without forced air warming blanket (HUMI) or humidified warm gas combined with forced air warming blanket (HUMI+). We hypothesized that the use of warmed laparoscopic gas would have benefits in the maintenance of body temperature and reduce the occurrence of hypothermia.Results: The use of warm and humidified gas insufflation alone led to more hypothermia episodes with longer duration and longer recovery times as well as significantly lower core body temperature compared to the other two groups. In the comparison of the AIR group and HUMI + group, HUMI + patients had a significantly higher body temperature at arrival at the PACU (Post Anaesthesia Care Unit), had the least occurrence of hypothermia and suffered from less shivering.Conclusion: The use of warm and humidified gas insufflation alone does not sufficiently warm the patients. The optimal temperature management is achieved in the combination of external forced air warming and insufflation of warm and humidified laparoscopy gas.