Tubal Reversal Pregnancy Study Report 2007

Patient Characteristics

Notice of Study Update

The following is Dr. Berger's report from 2007. The corresponding sections in an updated report can be seen in 2 expanded pages in the Tubal Reversal Pregnancy Study 2009 - Patient Population by State and Patients Ages and Ligation Methods

Tubal Reversal Study Population

The study population consisted of 3,139 women who underwent tubal reversal surgery from January 2001 through December 2005 at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center - the only medical facility exclusively for tubal ligation reversal - located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Where Patients Came From

The women came from throughout the United States and from 23 foreign countries. The following map shows the geographic distribution of the resident locations of the US patients.

Figure 1. Where Patients Came From For Tubal Reversal Surgery

The Women's Ages

The women in the study ranged in age from 23 to 50 (Figure 1). The mean average was 34 years of age. Approximately three-fourths of the women were in their 30s.

Figure 1. Age Distribution of Study Population
Dr. Berger's tubal reversal patients ranged in age from 22 to 51 with the average age of 34. Approximately 75% of the women were in their 30s.

Dr. Berger's tubal reversal patients ranged in age from 22 to 51 with the average age of 34. Approximately 75% of the women were in their 30s.

Years of Age

Tubal Ligation Methods

An important factor affecting the outcome of tubal reversal surgery is the type of tubal ligation that was performed. There were four major tubal sterilization methods observed in this study population based on reviewing the tubal ligation operative report for each patient (Table 1) . The most common method involved tying and cutting out a segment of the tube (ligation/resection). The second most common method was mechanical occlusion by tubal clips or rings, followed in frequency by tubal coagulation (burning the tubes). Fimbriectomy (removing the end of the fallopian tube) was the least common method. In cases where the patient's operative report of the tubal ligation was not available, the method was classified as unknown. Because of the relatively small numbers of patients in the fimbriectomy and unkownn method categories, these were combined into one category for the presentation of data analyses.