A Case Report of Abdominal Pregnancy

Abstract

Abdominal pregnancy is an extremely rare form of extra uterine gestation. They may be primary or secondary with USG and MRI aiding in the diagnosis. Here we report a case of abdominal pregnancy in a 24 year woman with 12 wks amenorrhoea. I. Introduction Ectopic and extra uterine pregnancy refers to implantation of blastocyst or fertilized ovum outside the uterine cavity. The commonest sites of such pregnancies are fallopian tubes and the least frequent being the ovary and abdominal cavity. Abdominal pregnancy, with a diagnosis of one per 10000 births, is an extremely rare and serious form of extrauterine gestation (1) . Abdominal pregnancies account for almost 1% of ectopic pregnancies (2) . The incidence of abdominal pregnancy varies from 1 in 372 to 1 in 9,714 live births. Abdominal pregnancy is associated with high morbidity and mortality, with the risk for death 7 to 8 times greater than from tubal ectopic pregnancy and 50 times greater than from intrauterine pregnancy (3) . The high rate of morbidity and mortality from abdominal pregnancy often results from a delay in diagnosis. The placenta can be attached to the uterine wall, bowel, mesentery, liver, spleen, bladder and ligaments. It can be detach at any time during pregnancy leading to torrential blood loss (4) . Abdominal pregnancies are classified as primary or secondary. Most are secondary, the result of early tubal abortion or rupture with secondary implantation of the pregnancy into the peritoneal cavity. Sonography is considered the front-line diagnostic imaging method, with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) serving as an adjunct in cases when sonography is equivocal and in cases when the delineation of anatomic relationships may alter the surgical approach (5) . Here we report a case of abdominal pregnancy.