Association between appendicectomy in females and subsequent pregnancy rate: a cohort study.
OBJECTIVE
To study whether subsequent pregnancy rate is reduced after appendicectomy.


METHODS
A cohort study was carried out in the General Practice Research Database, a United Kingdom primary care database.


METHODS
University hospital.


METHODS
Female patients who underwent appendicectomy between 1986 and 2009 and appropriate comparators were followed until first pregnancy.


METHODS
None.


METHODS
The association between appendicectomy and subsequent pregnancy was determined by Cox regression models.


RESULTS
The analyses included 76,426 appendicectomy patients, with 152,852 comparators from the database. There were 30,030 pregnancies (39.3%) in the appendicectomy cohort and 43,321 (28.3%) in the comparator cohort during a mean (SD) follow-up of 10.5 (6.6) years. Adjusted hazard ratios for subsequent birth rates were 1.54 (95% confidence interval, 1.52-1.56).


CONCLUSIONS
Appendicectomy was associated with increased subsequent pregnancy rate in this study. This suggests that a history of appendicectomy is not associated with impaired fertility.
Medicines Monitoring Unit, Division of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland.
Li
L
Wei
Thomas
T
MacDonald
Sami
S
Shimi
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001062:Appendectomy / Q000639:trends*; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000639:trends; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000453:epidemiology; D011247:Pregnancy; D018873:Pregnancy Rate / Q000639:trends*; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult