BMJ  2004;328:107 (10 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7431.107-b

Letter

Hysterectomy and sexual wellbeing

Data were misrepresented

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The study by Roovers et al on hysterectomy and sexual wellbeing addresses a subject of great concern to women.¹ Unfortunately, the stated conclusions of the study are not borne out by the data presented.

My calculations show that 126/310 (40%) of the women had "any sexual problems" and 29 (9%) women had new sexual problems after surgery. Therefore, the conclusion that sexual pleasure significantly improved in all patients, independent of the type of hysterectomy, quoted by the media worldwide, is unfounded. Women (and their doctors) should understand that this study does not predict improvement for an individual woman.

Curiously, only women with male partners were analysed, as if that is the only type of sexual pleasure that counts. Thus 34 women were excluded from the analysis, as were 10 women who were not sexually active after surgery, perhaps because of symptoms induced by the surgery. Sexual activity, discomfort, . . . [Full text of this article]

UCLA School of Medicine, Santa Monica, CA 90401, USA wparker@ucla.edu

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