Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the time length until the human chorionic gonadotropin titer became negative after medical or surgical treatment of ectopic pregnancy.
Experimental design: Prospective, randomized study. PARTECIPANTS AND INTERVENTIONS: We compared time to resolution in 30 cases of tubal pregnancies successfully treated, 15 underwent laparoscopic linear salpingostomy (group 1) and 15 medical treatment with single-ose methotrexate (group 2). The patients of both groups had no meaningful differences of age, gestational age and human chorionic gonadotropin mean values.
Measures: During the follow-up human chorionic gonadotropin serum values were obtained every two days until the titer was negative.
Results: The time to resolution was 33.6 +/- 6.6 days in group 1, 31.5 +/- 7.8 in group 2 with no statistically meaningful differences.
Conclusion: The data, comparable with results obtained by laparoscopic treatment, suggest that human chorionic gonadotropin value becomes negative independently of type of treatment and residual trophoblast.