Objective: To evaluate the factors affecting the pregnancy rate after microsurgical reversal of tubal ligation.
Design: Retrospective clinical study.
Setting: Private practice affiliated with a tertiary care center. One hundred twenty-eight consecutive patients who underwent tubal reversal between October 1992 and May 2001.
Intervention(s): Microsurgical tubal reanastomosis performed by a single surgeon.
Main outcome measure(s): Subsequent pregnancy rates were evaluated with Fisher's exact tests and logistic regression according to clinical characteristics of patients.
Result(s): The pregnancy rate was 85.7% (54 out of 63) in patients <or=35 years of age vs. 45.5% (10 out of 22) in patients >35 years. The odds ratio (OR) between the two age groups was 7.20, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 2.41 to 21.55. The pregnancy rate was 85.4% (35 out of 41) in patients with body mass index (BMI) <or=25 compared with 65.9% (29 out of 44) in patients with BMI >25 (OR 3.02; CI 1.04 to 8.77). Patients sterilized <or=8 years had a pregnancy rate of 87.2% (34 out of 39), vs. 65.2% (30 out of 46) in patients sterilized >8 years (OR 3.63; CI 1.19 to 11.09).
Conclusion(s): Age was the primary statistically significant factor affecting pregnancy rate in tubal reversal patients. Body mass index and duration of sterilization had smaller, but statistically significant, associations with pregnancy rate.