Surgical procedures to treat pre-cancerous cervical lesions do not affect fertility

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers from Kaiser Permanente have found that common surgical procedures to diagnose and treat precancerous cervical lesions do not decrease a woman's chance of becoming pregnant.

For the study, researchers analyzed the medical records of 4,137 women aged 14 to 53 who were members of the Kaiser Permanente health plan in Oregon and Washington between 1998 and 2009 who underwent a cervical treatment procedure, such as a LEEP procedure, cryotherapy, or another procedure to remove cells. Women were followed for up to 12 years after the the procedure to learn if they become pregnant.

Those women were compared to 81,435 controls and 13,767 who underwent a colposcopy or biopsy diagnostic procedure. Results showed that 14% of women who underwent cervical treatment procedures got pregnant versus 9% of those who did not and 11% of those underwent a colposcopy or biopsy.

After adjusting for other factors, researchers found that women who underwent a treatment procedure were nearly 1.5 times more to likely to get pregnant than untreated women.

Pregnancy rates among those who had treatment procedures were the same as those who had a colposcopy or biopsy. The researchers note that the increased likelihood of conceiving among these women may be due to them being more sexually active compared with the untreated group