USE OF AN ENDOLAPAROSCOPIC PROBE IN CONSERVATIVE MANAGEMENT OF FALLOPIAN PREGNANCY

The incidence of extrauterine pregnancy has shown an increasing trend, exceeding one out of every 100 term pregnancies. This has resulted in the development of more and more conservative surgical treatments in order to retain the fertility of women. The use of operative laparosco py has led to progress being made in this direction, due to reduced ti ssue trauma and a reduction in the number of peritoneal adhesions. Tub al isthmic pregnancies tend to cause an irregular increase in the size of the whole tube, which causes problems for pinpointing the exact si te of the ectopic implantation. It is often necessary to make a longit udinal incision in the tubal wall to identify the chorionic tissue and remove it completely. In an attempt to avoid this unnecessarily exten sive surgery, we used an echographic sector probe under laparoscopic c ontrol to locate the exact area of the ectopic implantation. We found it was possible to remove the villous tissue through a very short and precise cut in the tubal wall which facilitated the drainage of the lu men and reduced the bleeding normally associated with more extensive t ubal surgery. Hysterosal-pingographic follow-up studies after 2 months showed good tubal recanalization.