Reproductive Surgery for Infertility Conditions

Reproductive surgery is a particularly important part of our practice. Sometimes there are anatomical problems that will prevent pregnancy, for instance, scar tissue within the uterine cavity or growths within the uterine cavity or within the uterine muscle that will prevent the uterus from functioning as well as it can. So often we will need to do a procedure to repair or enhance the uterus so it's able to function more appropriately. There are other surgical conditions such as endometriosis, a problem that can cause extensive scarring within the pelvis and prevent the fallopian tubes and ovaries from communicating well with each other. There are also other problems that endometriosis can cause which will impair fertility, such as inflammatory changes and such. One of the things that we're particularly proud of is our ability to do minimally invasive surgery. Most of the surgery we do can be done through small incisions, which allow faster recovery time. We also do robotic surgery, particularly for treatment of uterine fibroids, which allows us to do a procedure that ordinarily would need to be done through a larger incision, requiring longer hospitalization, longer recovery time. Because we can do this with the assistance of a robot through smaller incisions, the procedure can be completed in a more efficient manner. These developments have really helped to enhance the service that we can provide. One of the problems that we frequently are confronted with is congenital abnormalities of the uterus where the uterus has not developed as normally as it should. And there are procedures that we can do to repair it and enhance it so that it'll function better for achieving a pregnancy and allowing a pregnancy to progress to its full term. One example is a uterine septum. A uterine septum is a wall of tissue within the uterine cavity that can be easily removed through a minimally invasive procedure called hysteroscopy, and it can make the difference between a miscarriage rate as high as 80% to a live birth rate as high as 80%. There are other conditions that will also require surgery, such as damaged fallopian tubes. If IVF is a required treatment for a patient who has tubal blockage, it's usually necessary that we remove the fallopian tubes before in vitro fertilization can be done. That can be done through a minimally invasive procedure called laparoscopy, which allows the patient to recover relatively quickly and be back to work within just a few days. Minimally invasive surgery allows us to go in and correct the problem and make it so that the patient can go on with the process of trying to become pregnant.