Vulvovaginal symptoms are common problems in General Practice and may be difficult to manage. Professor Jason Abbott will discuss his latest research into the use of laser therapy for vulvovaginal symptoms related to menopause. He will then compare his results to all the studies that have been published so far. This is part one of this article. Read Part 2 of this transcript>>

Practice points

• A woman doesn’t need to have atrophy to have vulvovaginal symptoms due to menopause.
• Fractionated laser treatments only damages approximately 4% of the vulvovaginal tissue, so there is no full thickness burn and it is quite superficial.
• The clinical presentation is about symptoms, and we must change those symptoms to be recommending this as a reasonable and worthwhile treatment, because it is also not cheap. The cost of the treatment needs to be taken into consideration as well.

• The outcome of Prof. Abbott’s double-blind, randomised and placebo-controlled trial was that laser therapy is not any more effective than placebo for the management of vulvovaginal symptoms due to menopause.
• We have to go to the science and make sure that this is driving our care for patients.