[Endosonography in extrauterine pregnancy]

70 women were examined by transvaginal scanning after a pelvic gynecological examination revealed the suspicion of an ectopic pregnancy. In 32 cases a pelviscopy confirmed an extrauterine pregnancy, 29 of those were detected previously by transvaginal scanning. In 29 other patients the suspected diagnosis could be excluded. In 7 women the suspicion of an ectopic pregnancy could neither be confirmed nor excluded by means of transvaginal scanning. However, in those cases controls of beta-HCG presented values less than 5 mU/ml pleading for the non-existance of pregnancy. From the total number of patients examined 10 cases turned out to provide false results, this is equivalent to a failure rate of 13.1%. Transvaginal scanning is a powerful diagnostic tool to detect ectopic pregnancies, potentially helping to avoid the procedure of a pelviscopy in a number of cases.