Efficacy of methotrexate in the treatment of nonruptured ectopic pregnancy - A six year experience at Polish Mother's Memorial Institute

The use of methotrexate to treat ectopic pregnancy was introduced in the 1990s. In 1982, Tanaka et al. was the first to treat intramural pregnancy with methotrexate successfully (1). More recently, Ory et al. (2) and then Stovall et al. (3) used methotrexate to treat unruptured ectopic pregnancies. Stovall et al. created the nonlaparoscopic diagnostic algorithm for ectopic pregnancy, which included serial assay of beta-hCG, progesterone levels, transvaginal ultrasound and curettage (4). In our six year study we qualified for conservative therapy 51 patients with unruptured ectopic pregnancy. We treated these patients with a single dose of methotrexate (50 mg/m(2)). Our results are compared to those of other authors who used similar diagnostic and therapeutic techniques.