Fertility after ectopic pregnancy: first results of a population-based cohort study in France

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the reproductive outcomeafter ectopic pregnancy (EP) from a population-based registerin the centre of France. Since 1992, all the women aged 15–44years, who permanently reside in the target area and who weretreated either by surgical or medical procedures for an ectopicpregnancy in one of the area centres, have been registered andprospectively followed until 45 years of age. The analysis presentedwas based on the 155 women registered between January 1992 andMarch 1994 who were followed up for at least 6 months, and whowere seeking a new pregnancy. The mean follow-up period was16 months. A total of 102 women (66%) obtained a pregnancy.The first conception was intrauterine for 92 women, and 10 hada recurrence of ectopic pregnancy. Risk factors of recurrencewere prior spontaneous abortion and prior tubal damage. Forthose women who conceived, the mean time to obtain pregnancy(’time to pregnancy‘) was 4.8 months. The 1 yearcumulative intrauterine pregnancy rate (i.e. the probabilityof obtaining an intrauterine pregnancy within 1 year of seekingpregnancy) was 70%. After multivariate analysis by a Cox regression,the factors associated with higher fertility were age < 30years, high educational level and no prior tubal damage.