Clinical and histologic evaluation of laser reanastomosis of the uterine tube.

Conventional microsurgical reanastomosis was compared with laser microsurgical reanastomosis of previously ligated uterine tubes in 14 rabbits. A final laparotomy was performed to determine adhesion formation and uterine tube patency, and a histologic examination was done of the anastomosis sites using four histologic indices for grading. Laser microsurgery produced significantly less adhesions (mean +/- standard error of the mean adhesion score, 0.79 +/- 0.24) than conventional microsurgery (2.29 +/- 0.13, P less than 0.001). However, there was no significant difference in all four histologic indices of tissue reunion at the anastomosis site between the two types of surgical technique. In a separate experiment, CO2 laser was found to be unable to weld uterine tubes successfully. Thus, the CO2 laser can significantly reduce postoperative adhesions in microsurgical uterine tube reanastomosis but without any significant histologic difference in tissue reunion, compared with conventional microsurgery.