Paradigm shift from tubal ligation to opportunistic salpingectomy at cesarean delivery in the United States

BACKGROUND: Opportunistic salpingectomy is now recommended at the time of routine gynecologic surgery to reduce the risk of future ovarian cancer, and performance of opportunistic salpingectomy has increased markedly at the time of benign hysterectomy. Salpingectomy has also been suggested to be feasible at the time of cesarean delivery in women desiring sterilization; however, uptake has not been previously studied on a national level. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine recent population trends in the utilization and characteristics of salpingectomy at the time of cesarean delivery in the United States. STUDY DESIGN: This is a population-based retrospective observational study querying the National Inpatient Sample between October 2015 and December 2018. The primary outcome measure was the temporal trend of bilateral salpingectomy at cesarean delivery, assessed with linear segmented regression with log transformation utilizing 3-month time increments. The secondary outcome measures included patient characteristics associated with bilateral salpingectomy, assessed with a multinomial regression model, and surgical outcome (hemorrhage, blood transfusion, hysterectomy, and oophorectomy) at the time of bilateral salpingectomy vs bilateral tubal ligation, assessed with generalized estimating equation in a propensity score-matched model. RESULTS: There were 3,813,823 women at the age of 15 to 49 years who had cesarean deliveries included, of whom 397,260 (10.4%) had bilateral salpingectomy and 203,400 (5.3%) had bilateral tubal ligation overall. During the time period studied, performance of bilateral salpingectomy among women undergoing cesarean delivery significantly increased from 4.6% to 13.2% (odds ratio for the fourth quarter of 2018 vs the fourth quarter of 2015, 2.69; 95% confidence interval, 2.63-2.75; Figure panel). In contrast, performance of bilateral tubal ligation among women undergoing cesarean delivery significantly decreased from 11.3% to 2.4% (odds ratio, 0.20; 95% confidence interval, 0.19-0.21). By the third quarter of 2016, the number of women who had bilateral salpingectomy exceeded those who had bilateral tubal ligation at cesarean delivery (8.6% vs 7.3%). Increasing the utilization of bilateral salpingectomy did not vary across age groups; the salpingectomy rate increased from 7.5% to 21.1% among women at the age of >= 35 years and from 3.8% to 10.7% among women at the age of <35 years (both, P<.001). In a propensity score matched model, women in the bilateral salpingectomy group were more likely to have hemorrhage (3.8% vs 3.1%; odds ratio, 1.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.15-1.33), blood product transfusion (2.1% vs 1.8%; odds ratio, 1.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.04-1.30), hysterectomy (0.8% vs 0.4%; odds ratio, 2.28; 95% confidence interval, 1.84-2.82), and oophorectomy (0.3% vs 0.2%; odds ratio, 2.02; 95% confidence interval, 1.47-2.79) than those in the bilateral tubal ligation group. When restricted to the nonhysterectomy cases, the bilateral salpingectomy group had a higher rate of hemorrhage (3.4% vs 3.0%; odds ratio, 1.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-1.26) and oophorectomy (0.3% vs 0.1%; odds ratio, 1.75; 95% confidence interval, 1.22-2.50) than the bilateral tubal ligation group. CONCLUSION: In the United States, the utilization of bilateral salpingectomy at the time of cesarean delivery increased rapidly between 2015 and 2018, replacing tubal ligation as the most common type of sterilization performed with cesarean delivery. The higher surgical morbidity in the bilateral salpingectomy group than the bilateral tubal ligation group observed in this study warrants further investigation.