[Ciliary activity of cells of the fallopian tubes (apropos of the sequellae of salpingitis)].

A study was made of ciliary movement in tubal epithelium using microphotooscillography on the tubes of 91 patients who were operated on for tubal, ovarian or uterine pathology. Three groups were classified: 31 with healthy tubes, 47 with tubes that showed the consequences of salpingitis. These patients had been operated on for sterility after much treatment with antibiotics and corticoids. 13 sets of tubes from pregnant women (6 cases had intra-uterine pregnancies and underwent tubal ligation after Caesarean section or after a termination of pregnancy) and 7 cases had extra-uterine pregnancies with salpingectomy. This study has made it possible for us to make several observations: The ciliary activity was not altered by the time in the menstrual cycle. When the tubes were healthy tubal activity was hardly changed when a fibroid was present, nor when an ovarian cyst or endometriosis were present (550 beats a minute). In pregnant women ciliary activity is maintained until the pregnancy becomes intra-uterine. It is always abolished in cases of extra-uterine pregnancy, even if this is at some distance from the site of inflammatory reaction caused by implantation of the oocyte. In cases following salpingitis, ciliary activity in the tubes is often altered and sometimes nil. It therefore seems that if one excludes anatomical lesions such as tubal blocks and ampullary phimosis, salpingitis which is the cause of sterility changes tubal physiology greatly. This is true even at some distance from the site of the infective process as is shown by changes in ciliary activity.