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. 2022 May 27:15:5273-5284.
doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S368202. eCollection 2022.

The Influence of Living in Rural Areas on the Evolution and Management of Pediatric Ovarian Cystic Lesions: A Retrospective Study on a Cohort from South Eastern Romania

Ioana Anca Stefanopol #  1   2 , Liliana Baroiu  3   4 , Sergiu Chirila  5 , Magdalena Miulescu #  6 , Lucreţia Anghel  3   7 , Luiza Nechita #  3 , Ciprian Adrian Dinu #  8 , Victorita Stefanescu  3 , Carmen Bobeica #  1 , Alexandru Nechifor #  3 , Alin Laurenţiu Tatu  3   9   10   11
Affiliations

The Influence of Living in Rural Areas on the Evolution and Management of Pediatric Ovarian Cystic Lesions: A Retrospective Study on a Cohort from South Eastern Romania

Ioana Anca Stefanopol et al. Int J Gen Med. .

Abstract

Background: The incidence of ovarian cystic lesions (OCLs) in pediatric patients has been increasing in recent years. An early diagnosis is mandatory for a favourable prognosis but it depends on the primary medical care services and on the socioeconomic status of the patient. The present study aims at assessing the prevalence and the age-specific frequencies of pediatric OCLs, as well as identifying disparities between subjects in the urban and the rural areas, in order to explore the extent to which OCLs occurrence, diagnosis, evolution and treatment differ in the case of patients living in rural areas.

Methods: A 3-year retrospective study was conducted between 2017 and 2019. All the female patients aged between 0 and 18 with OCLs ≥10 mm (N = 488), diagnosed and treated at "Sf.Ioan" Clinical Emergency Hospital for Children in Galaţi were included in the study. The Chi2 test was used for comparing the distributions of frequencies, and the t-Student test was used for comparing the means of any two normally distributed variables. The statistical significance threshold (p) was set at 0.05.

Results: The prevalence of OCLs ≥10 mm was 14.85%, 47.13% of the subjects originating in rural area (p = 0.62). Different from the urban areas, the rural ones are characterised by a lower proportion of patients with BMI ≥25 (p = 0.002), larger OCLs mean size (p = 0.278), a more frequent complex aspect on ultrasonography (p = 0.01), and a smaller number of general physician referrals (p = 0.005). Moreover, a higher proportion of rural patients were intraoperatively diagnosed with OCLs (p = 0.044), had complicated OCLs (p = 0.012) and had their OCLs surgically treated OCLs (p < 0.01).

Conclusion: Taking into consideration the socio-economic situation of south eastern Romania, patients living in rural areas have proven exposed to a higher risk of presenting with larger, complex and complicated OCLs, which most often require surgical treatment.

Keywords: body mass index; incidence; management; ovarian cyst; rural population; torsion.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no financial competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the patients’ inclusion.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Age distribution histogram for the study group.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The distribution of the patients’ ages according to the area of origin.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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