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Pregnancy following cesarean scar defect (niche) repair: a cohort study

  • General Gynecology
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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of the study is to learn the obstetrical outcome of women after laparoscopic niche repair.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study including all women after laparoscopic niche repair done by a single high-skilled surgeon, from July 2014 to March 2019. Data were collected from women's medical records and a telephone interview was performed to assess further symptoms and attempts to conceive, including pregnancy outcomes.

Results

During the study period, 48 women underwent laparoscopic niche repair, of them complete follow-up was achieved for 37 (78.7%) women. The median residual myometrial thickness measured by ultrasound before the repair was 2.0 mm (IQR 1.4–2.5). Attempts to conceive were reported by 81% (n = 30) of the women, while 18 (60%) achieved pregnancy in median time of 6 month (IQR 5–12) post-niche repair. 14 (78%) of the women conceived spontaneously. No placental abnormalities were reported in any of the women. All gave birth by cesarean delivery at a median of 38.4 gestation week (IQR 37.0–39.5). No dehiscence or rupture was reported.

Conclusions

Pregnancy following niche repair can be achieved with low pregnancy complication rate and good pregnancy outcomes. Further studies need to be done to strengthen our findings.

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Data availability

Data will be available upon request.

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Funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

MG: Project administration; Supervision; Writing—Review & Editing; IT: Investigation, Data collection; RM: Methodology; Writing—Review & Editing; SC: Investigation; Review & Editing; AMS: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Roles/Writing—original draft.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aya Mohr Sasson.

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Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study protocol was approved by the ‘‘Assuta Medical Center’’ ethical committee Review Board (ID 33-19-ASMC) on the 4 of Aug 2019.

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Goldenberg, M., Timor, I., Mashiach, R. et al. Pregnancy following cesarean scar defect (niche) repair: a cohort study. Arch Gynecol Obstet 306, 1581–1586 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-022-06688-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-022-06688-w

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