You are here

Article Text

Article menu

This article has a correction. Please see:

Download PDFPDF
Learning from errors
CASE REPORT
Spontaneous ovarian heterotopic pregnancy
  1. Russell Stanley,
  2. Anjana Nair,
  3. Francisco Fiallo
  1. School of Health Professions, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Russell Stanley, russell.stanley{at}ttuhsc.edu

Summary

Heterotopic pregnancy is a simultaneous intrauterine and ectopic pregnancy. We report a case of a spontaneous ovarian heterotopic pregnancy. A 36-year-old woman, gravida 7 para 4-1-1-5 at 4 weeks gestation (spontaneous conception), presented to the emergency department with vaginal spotting, lower abdominal cramps with human chorionic gonadotropin(hCG) 10 772 mIU/mL (hCG at T0). Abdominal and pelvic examinations were benign. Transvaginal sonogram (TVS) showed an intrauterine gestational sac and yolk sac, no fetal pole visualised. She was discharged home with a diagnosis of threatened abortion. The patient returned to the emergency department 3 weeks later (T1) at 7 weeks gestation with recurrent vaginal bleeding and lower abdominal pain. Her TVS showed an empty uterus with small amount of free fluid in the cul-de-sac. A small 2 cm round mass noted in the adnexa with hCG of 4663 mIU/mL (hCG at T1). Laparoscopy revealed normal fallopian tubes bilaterally and a ruptured right ovarian ectopic pregnancy. Pathology was consistent with ectopic pregnancy. Abnormal hCG patterns should raise suspicion for heterotopic pregnancy.

  • pregnancy
  • reproductive medicine
  • obstetrics and gynaecology

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2018-225619

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors RS contributed to writing most of the case report and detailed research regarding the Discussion section and the development of the management strategy as written. AN was the primary surgeon on the case and helped to guide RS through the appropriate items to include in the case report, and she also edited the case report through several drafts. FF contributed to some of the research and incorporation of the figures into the case report. He also was another one of the surgeons involved in the patient care with the case. He contributed to writing a portion of the introduction of the case report.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    Linked Articles