Morphology of rabbit ovaries after sterilization by uterus horn coagulation or section

Tubal sterilization of women may lead to menstrual cycle changes and climacteric complaints. Interference with ovarian metabolism, caused by impaired vascular and/or neural supply of the ovaries is held responsible for this. To obtain a histopathologic equivalent of these ovarian alterations in an animal model, we coagulated resp. cut the uterus horns of 316 white New Zealand rabbits by pelviscopy resp. by laparatomy. The pelviscopic method used was endocoagulation acc. to Semm in 80 cases, monopolar high frequency coagulation in 94 cases, and bipolar high frequency coagulation in 109 cases. The uterus horns of 23 rabbits were cut with a CO2-laser by laparotomy, a control group consisted of 10 animals. After 1, 2, 4, 8 or 12 weeks, the rabbits' ovaries were exstirpated by laparotomy and examined morphologically.

The increase of the average ovary diameter as well as the decrease of tertiary follicle numbers per ovary were significant by analysis of variance; however, a dependence on the operation method used could not be detected.