CORPUS-LUTEUM SURGERY

The corpus luteum is responsible for a substantial number of emergency operations, some of which prove to be unnecessary and others which are unnecessarily complex. The routine utilization of culdocentesis and pregnancy testing will identify the large majority of those patients who can safely be treated by expectant observation or who should first be investigated by a diagnostic operative technique, such as laparoscopy, before an exploratory laparotomy is performed. When a laparotomy is performed, the ovary should be conserved whenever possible. An analysis of 200 consecutive emergency operations for ruptured corpus luteum or corpus luteum cyst support these observations.