The preoperative diagnosis of pelvic congestion by means of 133Xenon injected into the cervical myometrium.

The pelvic congestion syndrome is an ill-defined entity and despite clinical signs and symptoms diagnosis is almost always presumptive. We studied the clearance of 133Xenon injected into the cervical myometrium, the aim being to evaluate the usefulness of the method as a diagnostic tool in this condition. At the interoperative controls signs of pelvic congestion were present in 40 patients and absent in 36. The mean cervico-myometrial blood flow was 14.28 +/- 6.46 ml/100 g/min in the first group and 25.13 +/- 7.07 ml/100 g/min in the second (p less than 0.01). We obtained false negative responses in 6 cases, false positive ones in 2 and doubtful ones in 16 cases.