Faculty Opinions recommendation of Preterm birth, ovarian endometriomata, and assisted reproduction technologies.

OBJECTIVE: To report preterm birth and small for gestational age (SGA) rates from assisted reproduction technologies (ART) patients with ovarian endometriomata compared with control groups.DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.SETTING: Tertiary university affiliated ART center and Perinatal Data Collection Unit (PDCU).PATIENT(S): Every woman who had an ART singleton baby born between 1991 and 2004 had her database record assessed (N = 4382). Control groups included 1201 singleton babies from ART patients without endometriosis and 2400 randomly selected women from the PDCU database of 850,000 births.INTERVENTION(S): There were 95 singleton ART babies from patients with ovarian endometriomata and 535 ART singleton babies from patients who had endometriosis but no ovarian endometriomata.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Preterm birth rates and SGA birth rates.RESULT(S): Preterm birth rate increased only in the ovarian endometriomata group when compared with community birth records (n = 850,000). Furthermore, ART patients with ovarian endometriomata had a statistically significantly increased likelihood of having a SGA baby when compared with other forms of endometriosis.CONCLUSION(S): Rates of preterm birth and SGA babies doubled in infertility patients with ovarian endometriomata who required ART. PMID: 18384780