Association between time from endometriosis surgery and outcome of in vitro fertilization cycles.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of time from surgery on the outcome of subsequent in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles in endometriosis patients.


METHODS
One hundred five women treated surgically for endometriosis and who underwent 252 IVF cycles were included. Approximately 1/2, 1/4 and 1/5 of the study group underwent 1, 2 and 3 cycles, respectively. We used the cycle as the basic unit of analysis with the time since surgery as the independent variable and the clinical pregnancy as the dependant variable. We used nonparametric approach for estimating the probabilities. To convey the uncertainty of the probability estimates, we produced bootstrap 95% CI.


RESULTS
The overall pregnancy rate was 31%. There does not appear to be any relationship between the length of time from surgery and clinical outcome. The point estimates suggest that there may be a slight negative relationship, since the estimated probability decreases steadily from 0.34 to 0.21 as the time since surgery goes from 0.5 to 5 years.


CONCLUSIONS
The data do not provide evidence for a strong relationship between the time since surgery and the probability of a clinical pregnancy with IVF.
Bedaiwy
Mohamed A
MA
Minimally Invasive Surgery Center, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio 44195, USA.
Falcone
Tommaso
T
Katz
Ethan
E
Goldberg
Jeffrey M
JM
Assad
Radwan
R
Thornton
Julie
J
D004624:Embryo Transfer / Q000379:methods*; D004715:Endometriosis / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D005307:Fertilization in Vitro / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010062:Ovulation Induction; D011247:Pregnancy; D018873:Pregnancy Rate; D013997:Time Factors