Abstract
To provide reference for the diagnosis and treatment of retroperitoneal ectopic pregnancy
(REP), we conducted a review on all of the reported cases in English by summarizing
their clinical manifestation, diagnosis, management and prognosis. A total of 25 literatures
including 26 REP cases were collected from PubMed database. 40 % (10/25) of the patients
had a history of tubal pregnancy, 65.4 % (17/26) was spontaneous pregnancy, and the
average period of amenorrhea was 56.7 days. Abdominal pain is the most common (53.8
%, 14/26) symptom of REP. Ultrasound is the main method of diagnosing REP. Only 30.8
% (8/26) were diagnosed as REP at the initial visit, and 55.6 % (10/18) of those who
were misdiagnosed received unnecessary invasive treatment. The pregnancy sites of
REP are complex, and it can be simply divided into pelvic REP and abdominal REP. Due
to preoperative misdiagnosis, 46.2 % (9/26) of REP experienced two or more treatments.
Except for 2 patients who received local methotrexate (MTX) injection in the gestational
sac, the other 24 patients underwent surgical treatment, and all patients had a good
prognosis. Due to insufficient knowledge, the rate of misdiagnosis and mistreatment
of REP is high. The key to diagnosing REP is to consider the possibility of REP and
the scanning field during examination can cover the site of pregnancy. Local MTX injection
and surgical resection are both effective methods for the treatment of REP.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 17, 2021
Accepted:
February 16,
2021
Received in revised form:
February 9,
2021
Received:
January 19,
2021
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
