ABSTRACT
The diagnosis of an extrauterine pregnancy is facilitated by transvaginal ultrasound, laparoscopy and hormonal assays. Curettage material obtained from women with ectopic pregnancy can be quite varied: decidual reaction, secretory endometrium and proliferative endometrium can be encountered. Curettage material may be devoid of villi or the implantation site despite coming from an intrauterine pregnancy and can then be misinterpreted as coming from a case of ectopic pregnancy, particularly when there is only decidua with Arias-Stella changes. In complicated pregnancies, the physiological vascular adaptive changes do not occur to the same extent or depth. The resulting compromise in blood supply to the placenta and conceptus can result in early pregnancy loss, intrauterine growth restriction, preeclampsia and intrauterine death. Abnormal placentation may be an etiological factor in miscarriage. Universal histological examination of ostensibly normal tissue from induced abortions is difficult to justify because of the large numbers.
