Factors Affecting Success of Single-Dose Methotreaxhate Treatment in Ectopic Pregnancy

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: We aimed to evalute the affectiveness of the single-dose methotreaxhate used in the treatment of ectopic pregnancy and and to identify the clinical and laboratory findigns affecting its success.METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the patients diagnosed with ectopic pregnancy who received single-dose methotraxhate treatment in between April 2013 and April 2018. The associations of the methotreaxhate treatment with patients’ s demographic characteristics, clinical and laboratory finding like serum ?-Hcg levels, size of ectopicmass, fetal cardiac positivity were evaluated.RESULTS: Mean serum ?-hCG levels of Group 1 (included patients succesfully treated with single-dose methotreaxhate,n=97) and Group 2 (included patients could not treated with single-dose methotreaxhate, n=26) prior to methotreaxhate treatment were 3128 ± 2085 mIU/ml and 5813 ± 3858 mIU/ml recpectively. In Group 1, fetal cardiac activitywas positive in 10 patients (10,3%) and in Group 2. The cardiac fetal activity was positive in 10 patients (10.3%) in Group 1 and 7 patients (26.9%) in Group 2. In total 123 patients who underwent methotreaxhate treatment the overall success rate of single-dose methotreathate treatment was found as 78.8% (97/123).DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION: Single-dose methotreaxhate treatment is a safe and effective option in ectopic pregnancy therapy. The most significant parameter affecting the success of this treatment is the serum ?-Hcg levels having an inverse relation with success rate. The observation of cardiac activity in the ectopic focus has been found to be an important parameter that reduces the success of treatment,although not being a definite contraindication to methotrexate therapy.