Feasibility and Reliability of Assessing Uterine Cavity Volume by SonoAVC in Women With Reproductive Failure.

INTRODUCTION

The uterus is one of key organs in reproduction and fetal development. A distorted shape and size of uterine cavity may to have significant impact on the reproductive failures (Chan et al., 2011; Saravelos et al., 2008). Current definitions and classification for uterine morphology and its congenital malformation are still controversial (Grimbizis et al., 2013; 2015; Ludwin and Ludwin, 2015a, b). This is an important barrier for studies evaluating the effectiveness of interventions for women with such conditions (Ludwin et al., 2015 a, b).

The uterine cavity volume is a specific feature of each individual uterus, and together with shape of uterine cavity may play one of the crucial roles in etiology of reproductive failures. To the investigators' knowledge the uterine cavity volume has never been studied in this context (Ludwin et al., 2016).

Recently, the technique of uterine cavity imaging, volume estimation, and quantification of deformity degree using automatic volume calculation (called SonoHysteroAVC; using SonoAVC software; GE Medical Systems, Zipf, Austria) during three-dimensional sonohysterography has been described (Ludwin et al., 2016). Uterine volume estimation is also potentially possible using Virtual Organ Computer-aided AnaLysis (VOCAL™; GE Medical Systems, Zipf, Austria), as for endometrial volume calculation (Martins et al., 2011).

The investigators believe that SonoHysteroAVC technique might improve the knowledge about uterine anatomy, the diagnostic accuracy of uterine cavity shape imaging, and the management of women with different morphological shapes of the uterine cavity. (Ludwin et al., 2016).