Laparoscopic evaluation of apparently normal infertile women

Abstract

Laparoscopy was used to evaluate 130 women whose basic infertility survey revealed no abnormalities. Overall 75 (57.7%) patients were found to have evidence of pelvic disease while the remainder were completely normal. Pelvic endometriosis was the most common pathology accounting for 27.7%, pelvic adhesions 20.8% and mild pelvic inflammatory disease 6.2%. Appropriate treatment of the pelvic conditions resulted in 31 (42.5%) pregnancies compared with 7 (12.3%) pregnancies in the no treatment group. The outcome of this study suggests that additional pregnancies do occur as a direct result of laparoscopic examination and subsequent therapy. We believe that laparoscopy should be performed on all women to search for a tubal or pelvic cause of infertility when all other examinations have been normal.