Laparoscopic female sterilization
Filshie, G.M.
Bailliere's Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology 3(3): 609-624
1989
ISSN/ISBN: 0950-3552 PMID: 2533014 Document Number: 373217
An overview of laparoscopic sterilization techniques from a historical and practical viewpoint includes instrumentation, operative techniques, mechanical occlusive devices, anesthesia, failure rates, morbidity and mortality. Laparoscope was first reported in 1893, but was developed simultaneously in France, Great Britain, Canada and the US in the 1960s. There are smaller laparoscopes for double-puncture procedures, and larger, single-puncture laparoscopes. To use a ring or clip, a much larger operating channel, up to 8 mm is needed. Insufflating gas may be CO2, which does not support combustion, but is more uncomfortable, NO2, which is also an anesthetic, and room air often used in developing countries. Unipolar electrocautery is now rarely used, in fact most third party payers do not allow it. Bipolar cautery, thermal coagulation and laser photocoagulation are safer methods. Falope rings, Hulka-Clemens, Filshie, Bleier, Weck and Tupla clips are described and illustrated. General anesthesia, usually a short acting agent with a muscle relaxant, causes 33% of the mortality of laparoscope, often due to cardiac arrest and arrhythmias, preventable with atropine. Local anesthesia is safer and cheaper and often used in developing countries. Failure rates of the various laparoscopic tubal sterilization methods are reviewed: most result from fistula formation. Mortality and morbidity can be caused by bowel damage, injury or infection, pre- existing pelvic infection, hemorrhage, gas embolism (avoidable by the saline drip test), and other rare events.