Laparoscopic surgery in pregnancy and maternal-fetal outcome in two hospitals of Yaounde, Cameroon

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the practice of laparoscopic surgery in pregnancy and maternal-fetal outcome.  Methodology: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study with historico-prospective data collection over a period of six years from January 2018 to July 2024. We included patients with progressive intrauterine pregnancy operated on laparoscopically who had complete records. CSPro version 7.7 and IBM SPSS version 22 software were used for data analysis. Results were expressed as mean, frequency and percentages. Results: A total of 896 patients underwent laparoscopic surgery during the study period, and 24 patients 
had an active intrauterine pregnancy, a frequency of 2.6%. The mean age was 28.1 ± 4.1 years. Primiparous women were the most common (59.1%), all pregnancies were monofetal with the exception of one heterotopic pregnancy, and the procedure took place in the first trimester in 68.2%. Mean gestational age was 12.4 SA± 4.9. The main operative indications were adnexal torsion (40.9%) and a large ovarian cyst (31.8%). Intraoperative findings were in the majority of cases: torsion of an ovarian cyst (54.5%), an ovarian mass suspected of malignancy (30.8%) and two dermoid cysts (9.1%). No fetal loss or maternal complications were recorded. The rate of pregnancies carried to term was 95.5%. Conclusion: Although quite rare, laparoscopic surgery during pregnancy enables the management of surgical pathologies reduced maternal-fetal morbidity