Introduction:

during the last 20 years the incidence of ectopic pregnancy has doubled or tripled, mainly in developed countries. This increase behaves differently in countries, regions or population areas.

Objective:

to characterize the behavior of ectopic pregnancy in the Guantánamo General Teaching Hospital "Dr. Agostinho Neto "during the year 2006.

Method:

the universe consisted of 763 patients with ectopic pregnancy in the period 2002-2006. The sample was 175, all of the year 2006. The variables studied were: age group, symptoms on admission, means of diagnosis, clinical forms and operations performed.

Results:

discrete growth was obtained in the number of ectopic pregnancies during the years of study. The age group of 20-24 obtained 31.4% in frequency and that of 25-29 and 34.9%. 85.7% of the patients presented with symptoms of abdominal pain and abnormal vaginal bleeding, followed by those with lower abdominal pain and amenorrhea (78.3%). In 73 patients it was diagnosed by the clinic plus culdocentesis in 41.8% of the cases and only in 9 by clinical plus laparoscopy.

Conclusions:

there was an increase in ectopic pregnancies. The year of greatest frequency was 2006. The age group of 25 to 29 years and the primiparous patients predominated. The predominant symptom of admission was lower abdominal pain and abnormal vaginal bleeding. The diagnosis with more frequency was the clinic plus culdocentesis. The complicated unstable ectopic pregnancy, the tubal implantation site and the ampullary location with total salpingectomy as the operation were the most frequent.

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