Conventional Laparoscopy Versus Robotic Surgery for Pain Relief in Patients With Deep Infiltrating Endometriosis

Background: Endometriosis is a common disease, affecting women in their reproductive age suffering from infertility, adnexal masses and chronic pelvic pain, obstruction of the bowel or urinary tract. Deeply infiltrating endometriosis (DIE) is defined as a solid endometriosis mass situated more than 5 mm deep to the peritoneum. These lesions are considered very active and are strongly associated with pelvic pain symptoms. Surgery is recommended in women with pain resistant to medical therapy and in women with contraindications to or refusal of medical therapy. Further indications for surgical treatment are the need of excluding malignancy in an adnexal mass, obstruction of the bowel or urinary tract. It is hypothesized that in patients with lesions in complex anatomic sites, a robot-assisted approach may provide improved instrument articulation compared with conventional laparoscopy, but no data are available. Aims: The aim of this study is to perform a pilot study investigating differences between robot-assisted laparoscopy compared to conventional laparoscopy regarding subjective symptom outcome, evaluated by VAS score for non-menstrual pelvic pain and dysmenorrhea. Study population: The study population will consist of women aged between 18 and 51 years who are referred to our gynecologic outpatient clinic due to symptomatic endometriosis. Women with suggested DIE and an indication for surgery can be included in this trial. Methods: Laparoscopic-assisted resection of endometriosis will be performed using up to five 5-mm ports, including an umbilical port and additional ports as dictated by each individual surgery. The robotic-assisted resection of endometriosis will be performed using the da Vinci Surgical System Si (Intuitive Surgical) using up to five ports as needed. Superficial and deep endometriosis resection will be performed in the usual standard fashion. Histological confirmation of endometriosis will be performed. The primary outcome is subjective sym