Prediction of pregnancy in infertile women based on the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's revised classification of endometriosis.

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the empirical relationship between the revised American Society for Reproductive Medicine's classification of endometriosis and pregnancy rates after treatment.

DESIGN

Retrospective analysis.

PATIENT(S): Patients seen by four practicing physicians.

INTERVENTION(S): Medical and/or surgical therapy for endometriosis.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Pregnancy defined as ongoing or delivered.

RESULT(S): There were no significant differences in pregnancy rates across stages of endometriosis. There was a slight decline in pregnancy rates among patients with Stage IV endometriosis, but statistical significance was not achieved.

CONCLUSION(S): The use of an arbitrary weighted system for assigning scores to individual categories of disease, or for computing a total score, has limited the overall effectiveness of the classification system to predict pregnancy.