Pelvic Adhesion

What are adhesions?

Adhesions are bands of scar tissues occurring between organs inside the abdomen and pelvis. They are formed during healing from pelvic surgery, Caesarean sections, infection or endometriosis.

What are the effects of pelvic adhesions?

Although the formation of scar tissue are a normal part of the healing process, adhesions can become problematic because they cause parts of the body that are not normally connected to stick to each other.

Adhesions can impair the normal movement of the pelvic organs and cause pelvic pain.

When adhesions block the ends of the fallopian tubes, they cause infertility.

How does laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery help?

When adhesions cause pain or other health problems, they can be removed by surgery allowing structures to move more freely. In the past, this was done using open abdominal surgery, but today it can be done using laparoscopic surgery because of the reduced trauma to the body.

Compared to open surgery, laparoscopic surgery itself reduced the rate of adhesions as less tissue is directly handled. The high-definition camera can produce magnified vision, allowing better control of bleeding and enhancing precision of the surgery. Other benefits of laparoscopic surgery include:

• Faster recovery.
• Less pain.
• Less scarring.
• Shorter hospital stay and earlier return to normal activities.

Once the adhesions are removed, various adhesion barriers can be placed inside the pelvis to stop adhesions reforming.