THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TVS (TRANSVAGINAL ULTRASOUND) IN DIAGNOSIS OF ECTOPIC PREGNANCY.

Corresponding Author:
Shaheera Ajaz,
Senior Resident,
Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology,
SKIMS, Srinagar,
Jammu and Kashmir,
India.
E-mail: shaheeraajaz900@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND

Ectopic pregnancy is a serious disaster in the reproductive life of a woman and is a major gynaecological emergency associated with increased mortality, decreased reproductive potential and is recurrent. Timely diagnosis of the ectopic pregnancy is lifesaving and also decreases number of operative procedures including diagnostic laparoscopy. We wanted to assess the effectiveness of TVS in diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy.

METHODS

110 patients who were operated for ectopic tubal pregnancies were evaluated retrospectively by reviewing their medical records of TVS done preoperatively, for diagnosing ectopic pregnancy from April 2012 to March 2014. Ectopic pregnancy visualized at laparoscopy/laparotomy was used as the gold standard. Data recorded included intraoperative findings of 110 cases of operated ectopic pregnancies and TVS findings of all 110 cases, which were done preoperatively.

RESULTS

TVS done preoperatively in all these 110 cases showed that 60% had inhomogeneous mass adjacent to ovary, 20.8% had a mass with hyper echoic ring around gestational sac, 8% had G. Sac with foetal pole without cardiac activity, 4% had G. Sac with foetal pole with cardiac activity and 7.2% had inconclusive scan. The sensitivity and positive predictive value of TVS to detect ectopic pregnancy in our study was 90.7% and 93.3% respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of transvaginal ultrasound to positively identify an ectopic pregnancy. Therefore, TVS is  effective in diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy.