Clinical analysis of outcomes of fertiloscopic examination for infertile women

Objective To explore the implication of fertiloscopy in screening the etiology of female infertility and tailoring the treatment method for an individual infertile woman. Methods This article retrospectively analyzed the outcomes of fertiloscopic examination for 487 infertile women in the Reproductive Medical Center of Tangdu Hospital from June 2014 to April 2018. The frequency distribution of the examination outcomes was presented descriptively by numbers and percentages. The discrepancies of frequency distribution between groups of different ages and infertility diagnosis were examined with chi-square test. Results The success rate of the examination was 100%. No complication occurred. The procedures were all tolerable. In all outcomes of the examination, there were 118 cases (24.2%) with normal uterine cavity, normal bilateral patent tubes and without other anomalies; 67 cases (13.8%) with normal uterine cavity, unilateral patent tube and without other anomalies, and 8 cases (1.6%) with normal uterine cavity, bilateral obstructive tubes and without other anomalies. In groups of age younger than 30 years old and age of 30 years old or older, in groups of primary infertility and secondary infertility, the proportion of cases with at least one patent tube without other anomalies (38%) was significantly lower than cases with 2 or more anomalies (62%). Among 216 patients who were followed up, the average interval between fertiloscopic exmaination and pregnancy was (8.15±3.14) months (1-35 months). The overall live birth rate was 54.6% (118/216), the ongoing pregnancy rate was 10.2% (22/216), the miscarriage rate was 6.5% (14/216), and there was 28.7% (62/216) patients who hadn’t gotten pregnant at the time of data collection. The proportion of live births through natural intercourse [77.0% (97/126)] was significantly higher than that through in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer [23.0% (29/126)] in patients with at least one patent fallopian tube (P<0.001). Conclusion For selected infertile women, fertiloscopy is a comprehensive, safe and convenient method with mild pain to explore all the anatomic condition of pelvic, ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterine. Fertiloscopic examination is benefit for most patients at any reproductive age of any infertility diagnosis in screening etiology of infertility and tailoring treatment program further. Key words: Infertility; Fertiloscopy; Transvaginal hydrolaparoscopy