Laparoscopic ovarian cystectomy of endometriomas: surgeons' experience may affect ovarian reserve and live-born rate in infertile patients with in vitro fertilization-intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

Objective: To assess whether the laparoscopist's experience can affect ovarian reserve and pregnancy outcome in vitro fertilization-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF-ICSI) patients who previously underwent laparoscopic conservative treatment for ovarian endometriomas.

Methods: One hundred and forty-nine IVF-ICSI cycles with infertile patients who previously underwent laparoscopic conservative treatment for ovarian endometriomas were enrolled. There were 76 cycles with an inexperienced surgeon and 73 cycles with an experienced surgeon.

Results: The number of antral follicle count (7.5±3.8 vs. 9.6±6.6; p=0.011), and live-born rate per cycle (9.3% vs. 32.9%; p<0.001) were significantly lower in the inexperienced group comparing with the experienced group. However, the mean number of oocytes, fertilization rate, mean number of embryos transferred, rate of good-quality embryos transferred, implantation rate and clinical pregnancy were similar between both groups.

Conclusions: The experience of the laparoscopist may affect ovarian reserve and live-born rate after treating ovarian endometrioma in infertile women with IVF-ICSI.