Fertility after laparoscopic management of deep endometriosis infiltrating the uterosacral ligaments

The aim of this study was to evaluate fertility outcome after laparoscopic management of deep endometriosis infiltrating the uterosacral ligaments (USL). From January 1993 to December 1996, 30 patients who presented with no other infertility factors were treated using laparoscopic surgery. The overall rate of intrauterine pregnancy (IUP) was 50.0% (15 patients). Only one of these 15 pregnancies was obtained using in-vitro fertilization techniques (IVF). The cumulative IUP rate for the 14 pregnancies which occurred spontaneously was 48.5% at 12 months (95% confidence interval 28.3-68.7). The rate of spontaneous pregnancies was not significantly correlated with the revised American Fertility Society (rAFS) classification. The rate of IUP was 47.0% (eight cases) for patients with stage I or II endometriosis and 46.1% (six cases) for the patients presenting stage III or IV endometriosis (not significant). These encouraging preliminary results show that in a context of infertility it is reasonable to associate classic treatment for endometriosis (e.g. lysis, i.p. cystectomy, bipolar coagulation of superficial peritoneal endometriotic lesions) with resection of deep endometriotic lesions infiltrating the USL. Apart from the benefit with respect to the pain symptoms from which these patients suffer, it is possible to use laparoscopic surgery with substantial retroperitoneal dissection and enable half of the patients to become pregnant. These results also raise the question of the influence of deep endometriotic lesions on infertility.