Reproductive System & Sexual Disorders: Current Research
Open Access

Abstract

Laparoscopic Tubal Anastomosis. An Assessment of the “ One-Stitch Technique”

Jean-Marc Ayoubi, Jean Bouquet de la Joliniere, Anis Feki and Jean-Claude Pons

The aim of the present study was to evaluate fertility outcome after laparoscopic microsurgical tubal anastomosis (one-stitch technique). We carried out a retrospective study of 51 patients seeking reversal of previous tubal sterilization. The mean age of the patients was 33.2 years (range: 30-44.5 years). Surgery lasted 122 minutes on average, (60-204 minutes). Mean time to pregnancy was 8.2 months (4-32 months) and the rate of pregnancy obtained was 56.2%. Twenty seven patients became pregnant and 12 had ectopic pregnancies; of the 15 intrauterine pregnancies, 3 miscarried spontaneously before 9 weeks. Our study observed valuable qualities of feasibility, simplicity and rapidity of the “one-stitch technique” in laparoscopic tubal anastomosis surgery, with related good rates of intrauterine pregnancy. The rate of pregnancy obtained is fairly similar to the rates reported in the literature with the same technique. However, the high proportion of ectopic pregnancies makes us believing that laparoscopic procedures using more than one single stitch should be preferred.