OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the efficacy of the surgical removal of Essure in the elimination of pelvic pain caused, presumably, by this device.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

A descriptive study of case series was conducted retrospectively. A review was performed of the medical histories of all the patients (11 in total) who underwent surgical removal of Essure devices at the University Hospital of Ourense (Spain) in the period between 1 January 2016 and 15 August 2018. The following items were collected: demographic data, medical history, data related to the insertion, characteristics of the pain, type of intervention, findings during the intervention and postoperative findings. The total number of patients intervened during that period was 11. The data was analyzed with the statistical software SPSS version 24 for Windows.

RESULTS:

Eleven patients were operated and 7 of them had abdominal pain after placement of the device, with an average delay of appearance of 3.75 years. The most practiced surgical technique was bilateral salpingectomy (7 of 11 patients). 7 of the 11 patients continued with pain after removal of the device; of them, 2 had previous diagnosis of chronic pain and 3 antecedents of abdominal surgery.

CONCLUSIONS:

It is evident that surgical removal of the Essure insert was not effective in almost two-thirds of the patients under study, which highlights that its removal does not guarantee the elimination of pain. Future research should determine why in some cases surgical removal is not effective.