Treatment of symptomatic pelvic varices by ovarian vein embolization

Purpose. Pelvic congestion syndrome is a common cause of chronic pelvic pain in women and its association with venous congestion has been described in the literature. We evaluated the potential benefits of lumboovarian vein embolization in the treatment of lower abdominal pain in patients presenting with pelvic varicosities. Methods. Nineteen patients were treated. There were 13 unilateral embolizations, 6 initial bilateral treatments and 5 treated recurrences (a total of 30 procedures). All embolizations were performed with either enbucrilate and/or macrocoils, and there was an average clinical and Doppler duplex follow-up of 15.4 months. Results. The initial technical success rate was 96.7%. There were no immediate or long-term complications. Variable symptomatic relief was observed in 73.7% of cases with complete responses in 57.9%. All 8 patients who had partial or no pain relief complained of dyspareunia. The direct relationship between varices and chronic pelvic pain was difficult to ascertain in a significant number of clinical failures. Conclusion. Transcatheter embolization of lumboovarian varices is a safe technique offering symptomatic relief of pelvic pain in the majority of cases. The presence of dyspareunia seemed to be a poor prognostic factor, indicating that other causes of pelvic pain may coexist with pelvic varicosities