Physiotherapy in the management of gynecological cancer patient: A systematic review

Physiotherapy interventions in the treatment of pelvic floor dysfunctions after gynaecological oncology procedures: a systematic review

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and a large percentage of cancer in women include gynaecological neoplasms. The aim of the review was to investigate the possibilities and effectiveness of physiotherapeutic techniques in the treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction after gynaecological oncology procedures. The review was performed in PubMed, Embase and PEDro databases. 5,561 articles were found, however only 11 met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. To assess the risk of bias of included studies RoB-2 tool, ROBINS-1 were used. Ten studies were assessed as "low" and one study was asses as "moderate" risk. Studies have shown that the most common physiotherapeutic method described to treat pelvic floor dysfunction are pelvic floor muscle training, followed by biofeedback, electrostimulation, and behavioural training. Extracorporeal magnetic innervation is among the innovative method used in the treatment of UI among women who have overcome gynaecological cancer. On the other hand, in the treatment of sexual disorders, a vaginal dilator and pelvic floor training are used. Overall, pelvic floor training appears to be an effective technique in the treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction after the treatment of gynaecological malignancies. A small amount of research, a large variety of types of cancer, different methods of measuring results and small research trials make it difficult to accurately compare the results and draw appropriate conclusions.