Laparoscopic early pregnancy diagnosis in the laboratory rat.

Timely and accurate diagnosis of pregnancy in the laboratory rat is an invaluable endpoint in embryological and reproductive toxicology studies. The purpose of the present study was to assess the feasibility, sensitivity, accuracy and safety of laparoscopic examination of the uterus for detecting pregnancy at an early stage, and defining the number of fetuses in surviving rat models. Female Wistar rats were subjected to a two-port laparoscopic examination of their uterus from day 6 to day 10 post-coitum (pc).