Is striae gravidarum related to cesarean scar and peritoneal adhesions?

Abstract

Objectives: Determination of the relationship among the peritoneal adhesions, cesarean scar and striae gravidarum. Study Design: Cross sectional Study. Settings: Gynecology and Obstetrics Department of Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur. Period: June 2018 to May 2018. Material & Methods: A total of 150 cases of cesarean section which presented at gynecology and obstetrics department of Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur were involved in this study. Davey scoring system was applied in order to determine the severity of striae gravidarum. Intraperitoneal adhesions were classified into five subcategories on the basis of Modified Blauer classification. Grouping was done on the random basis. Three groups were made. Group 1 consisted of the women with no striae gravidarum, group 2 had women with number of striae gravidarum from mild to moderate and group 3 had women of severe number of striae gravidarum. Comparison between different groups was done using the Mann-Whitney and student T test. Mean and standard deviation were calculated for quantitative variables while qualitative variables were assessed by their frequency and percentage. Statistically significant P value was 0.05 or less. Results: Intraperitoneal adhesions of grade 2-4, pigmentations and keliods were frequent in group 2 and 3 but the difference between these groups was not statistically significant (p-value 0.517, 0.427 and 0.372, respectively). There was no difference present among the group regarding the appearance of scar as well (p=0.541). As far as the length and width of the scar was concerned, the length was relatively more in patients of group 3 while width was relatively more in patients of group 1 but there were no statistically significant differences (Table-II) (p=0.289 and p=0.248 respectively). Conclusion: It can be concluded that there is no association between intraperitoneal adhesions and striae gravidarum but correlation between scar characteristics and striae gravidarum are evident.