Journal of Fertilization: In Vitro - IVF-Worldwide, Reproductive Medicine, Genetics & Stem Cell Biol
Open Access

Abstract

The Beneficial Effect of Fallopian Tube Embolization on the Outcome of IVF-ET for Patients with Hydrosalpinx

Shanshan Zhao, Yitang Wang, Shasha Wang, Xiaoyan Xu, Lin Kong, Feifei Zhou and Jichun Tan

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of fallopian tube embolization on in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer in patients with hydrosalpinx.

Methods: In total, 174 IVF-ET treatment cycles in patients with hydrosalpinges that pretreated with fallopian tube embolization and 696 cycles in age-matched patients with bilateral tubal obstruction were involved in this study. Compare clinical pregnancy rate, live birth delivery rate, ectopic pregnancy rate, abortion rate, preterm birth rate and fetal malformation rate between the two groups.

Results: (1) There was no statistically significant difference in patient age, years of infertility, basal FSH value, Gn dosage; oocyte number in fresh cycles and number of embryos transferred between the two groups. (2) The fertilization, cleavage, and good quality embryo rates were higher in the embolization group than the control group (76.3% vs. 72.9%, P = 0.006; 97.2% vs. 95.3%, P = 0.004; and 24.8% vs. 20.6%, P = 0.001); the abortion rate in the embolization group was significantly lower than the control group (2.3% vs. 7.8%, P = 0.01). Clinical pregnancy (38.5% vs. 37.8%, P = 0.86), live birth delivery (33.3% vs. 28.7%, P = 0.24), ectopic pregnancy (2.3% vs. 1.4%, P = 0.42), and preterm birth rates (20.7% vs.21.5%, P = 0.90) were not significantly different between the two groups, and the tube embolization technique did not increase the incidence of fetal malformations.

Conclusions: (1) Tubal embolization does not affect the clinical pregnancy rate of in vitro fertilization–embryo transfer, what is more it reduce the abortion rate. (2) Tubal embolization is a safe and effective method and worthy of clinical application.