Uterine Manipulation May Not Influence Ongoing Pregnancy: Case Report and Literature Review

Abstract

Abdominal pain is a very common presentation in early pregnancy. Its cause may be gynecological or totally nonpregnancy related. While acute appendicitis is the most common nonobstetric cause of pain in pregnant women, diagnosis and differentiation from other causes, including ectopic pregnancy, remain challenging. In clinical situations of uncertainty, laparoscopy is a useful diagnostic tool, but uterine manipulation should be avoided if an intrauterine pregnancy is a possibility. In this report, we describe a case of complicated appendicitis in very early pregnancy where the patient ended with a full-term healthy pregnancy despite undergoing a diagnostic laparoscopy with inadvertent uterine manipulation.