Second laparoscopy after treatment of acute pelvic inflammatory disease

We used second laparoscopy with dye insufflation to evaluate tubal findings in 20 women 15-45 weeks after treatment for acute pelvic inflammatory disease. Eight women had pelvic adhesions, including all six women with adhesions seen at first laparoscopy. However, in five of the six women, adhesions were milder or had disappeared unilaterally. Dye insufflation revealed tubal occlusion in five of eight women with adhesions and one of 12 women without adhesions. Thus, nine women (45%) had pelvic adhesions or tubal occlusion at second laparoscopy. Second laparoscopy is useful to objectively assess posttreatment tubal and peritubal morphology. Larger studies are needed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the procedure and the correlation of second laparoscopy findings to future infertility.