Tubal Reversal Study Report 2005

Pregnancy Rates by Age and Tubal Ligation Method

Notice of Study Update

The following is Dr. Berger's report from 2005. The corresponding page of an updated report can be seen in 2 expanded pages in the Tubal Reversal Pregnancy Study 2009 – Pregnancy Rates by Age and Tubal Ligation Method and Pregnancy Rates by Tubal Length

Tubal reversal pregnancy rates

During the follow-up study interval after tubal reversal surgery, 1,783 (65%) of the 2,692 women had reported pregnancies. However, even at the time of this publication, there have been more pregnancies reported to the staff at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center that were not included in the current statistical analysis. This means that the pregnancy rate is higher than the reported percentage, and continues to rise each passing day. Therefore, these pregnancy statistics should be understood as minimum estimates of the true pregnancy rate after tubal ligation reversal at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center.

Tubal reversal pregnancy rates by age

As expected, younger women had higher pregnancy rates than older women. The pregnancy rate after surgery ranged from 77% for women under 30 to 34% for women over 40 years of age and older (Table 3).

**Table 3. Pregnancy Rates by Age**
Age	Total Women	Pregnant (No.)	Pregnant (%)
<30	405	310	77%
30-34	984	709	72%
35-39	977	608	62%
40+	326	111	34%
Total	2692	1738	65%

Tubal reversal pregnancy rates by method

Tubal reversals of tubal ring or clip procedures were the most successful, followed by coagulation and ligation/resection procedures, but the differences in pregnancy rates for the latter two methods were relatively small (Table 4) . (Patients with unknown methods of tubal ligation were excluded from the analysis of pregnancy rates by tubal ligation method).

**Table 4. Pregnancy Rates by Tubal Ligation Method**
Method	Total Women	Pregnant (No.)	Pregnant (%)
Ring/clip	659	486	74%
Coagulation	849	552	65%
Ligation/resection	983	611	62%
Total	2491	1649	66%

Tubal reversal pregnancy rates by age and method

Pregnancy rates taking into account both age and tubal ligation type are shown in Table 5. The highest pregnancy rate (86%) were reported among women age 29 or less who underwent reversal of a previous ring or clip method of sterilization. Of the two variables, age is more important than tubal ligation method in predicting the likelihood of pregnancy after reversal surgery at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center.

**Table 5. Pregnancy Rates by Age and Tubal Ligation Method**
Age	Ring/clip	Ligation/resection	Coagulation
<30	104/121 (86%)	100/136 (74%)	93/126 (74%)
30-34	178/217 (82%)	242/365 (66%)	263/355 (74%)
35-39	170/241 (71%)	229/370 (62%)	171/285 (60%)
40+	34/80 (43%)	40/112 (36%)	25/83 (30%)