Hysterosalpingography as treatment and diagnostic tool in the management of infertility in Nigeria

Hysterosalpingography (HSG) is a diagnostic modality still commonly used to evaluate tubal occlusion in infertility management. We evaluated the treatment benefit in achieving tubal patency and spontaneous pregnancy in women with bilateral tubal occlusion in our resource poor setting using water soluble contrast medium.
Objective: To assess the proportion of women that achieved tubal patency and spontaneous pregnancy following a repeat HSG in the evaluation of infertility and the associated factors.
Materials and Method: This is a retrospective study of 37 out of 180 women who achieved tubal patency and pregnancy after repeat HSG in the course of infertility evaluation over a period of 18 months.
Result: Out of 180 patients with bilateral tubal occlusion that had the repeat HSG, 37 achieved tubal patency (20.5%) and from which 24 became pregnant. This gave a pregnancy rate of 13.3%. The mean age of the participants was 35.76 ± 4.72 years. The age group of 36-40 years had the highest frequency while most of them were nulliparous and had left tubal occlusion at the distal portion.
Conclusion: Tubal patency and spontaneous pregnancy were achieved following repeat HSG in women with bilateral tubal occlusion undergoing infertility evaluation. HSG has both diagnostic and treatment uses in infertility management and it is cost effective.