[Postmenopausal bleeding (author's transl)]

In the study reported here, 554 cases of postmenopausal bleeding were analyzed, i.e. 4.1% of the gynecological cases admitted during the 11 years from 1961 to 1971. In over one-third of these cases (35.3%) bleeding was caused by genital carcinoma. Among nonmalignant causes, endometrial atrophy was the most common (28.5%) followed by uterine polyposis (21.2%). As expected, corpus carcinoma (51%) was the most commonly found malignant genital disease, followed by cervical cancer (38%) which, surprisingly, is almost as common. The time-lapse between onset of bleeding and hospitalization with diagnosis is alarmingly long. In our patients it averages 19.2 weeks, is 36.3 weeks in corpus carcinoma cases and 16.3 weeks in women with cervical cancer.