Laparoscopic management of ovarian endometriomas: a critical review of current practice

Endometriomas are a common cause of gynaecological morbidity, but their aet iology and management remain controversial This review focuses on identifyi ng the evidence from published literature for the laparoscopic management o f ovarian endometriomas. A critical appraisal shows that laparoscopic surge ry is equivalent to laparotomy. There is no evidence to suggest that one mi nimal access surgical technique is clearly superior to another, However, th is may be related to the inconsistencies in study design. In view of this w e describe and justify our own management strategy for dealing with endomet riomas. (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.