Perioperative and post-operative complications of transvaginal ultrasound-guided oocyte retrieval: prospective study of >1000 oocyte retrievals

A. Ludwig, A K Ludwig, M. Glawatz, Georg Griesinger, G Griesinger, K. Diedrich, Michael Ludwig, M. Ludwig
Human Reproduction · 2006 · vol. 21(12) , pp. 3235–3240 · doi:10.1093/humrep/del278 · PMID:16877373 · W2146970852
Observational OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 12 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This prospective study of 1058 transvaginal ultrasound-guided oocyte retrievals found low complication rates, with vaginal bleeding in 2.8%, pelvic structure injury in one case, and severe OHSS in 2.7%, alongside notable post-operative pain in 3% of patients.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although transvaginal ultrasound-guided oocyte retrievals (OR) are performed routinely worldwide, there is very little systematic data about its complications. METHODS: We performed a prospective cohort study following the perioperative and post-operative complications of over 1058 ORs. Additionally, we assessed the pain experienced during the OR. RESULTS: A total of 1166 OR were performed during the study period, of which 1058 (90.7%) ORs were included prospectively. Incomplete data meant that the remaining 9.3% were excluded. No complications were caused by sedation or general anaesthesia. Vaginal bleeding was observed in 2.8% of procedures, without any cases of intra-abdominal bleeding. An injury of pelvic structures (a ureteral lesion) occurred in one case. No case of pelvic infection, but one case of unexplained fever, was observed. A severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) occurred in 2.7% of cases. Although most patients tolerated the OR well, 3% of patients experienced severe to very severe pain after the OR and 2% of patients were still suffering from severe pain 2 days after the procedure. The pain level increased with the number of oocytes retrieved. About 0.7% of patients required hospitalization for pain treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Patients can be reassured that overall OR is a safe procedure. However, patients have to be counselled about the minor risks of the OR. The literature on complications is reviewed in the article.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

MeSH descriptors

Endosonography Tissue and Organ Harvesting Vagina Adult Female Humans Oocytes Oocytes Postoperative Complications Preoperative Care Prospective Studies Risk Factors Tissue and Organ Harvesting Vagina

Citation neighborhood (2-hop)

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. Outer rings show 2-hop neighbours — papers reached through the immediate citers/citees. [ collapse to 1-hop ]

References (24)

Cited by (12)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:03:58.311020+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK