Introduction/Background Opportunistic salpingectomy (OS) refers to additional removal of the fallopian tubes during abdominal surgery performed for another medical indication, as prevention for ovarian cancer. Since OS has been inconsistently implemented, its clinical practice varies worldwide. To reduce this variation, insight is required into current clinical practice and associated characteristics. Therefore, the study aim was to determine the uptake of counselling and performance of OS, and its associated patient, surgical, physician, and hospital characteristics.

Methodology Retrospective study using electronic medical records from six different Dutch hospitals: two academic, two large teaching, and two non-teaching hospitals. Patients were considered eligible for OS if they underwent elective non-obstetric abdominal surgery for a gynecological indication from January 2015 through December 2018. Primary outcomes were uptake of counseling and performance of OS. Multilevel multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify characteristics associated with OS.

Results Counselling of OS increased significantly from 2.9% in 2015 to 29.4% in 2018. In this period, 440 patients were counselled on OS of which 95.9% chose for OS. Performance of OS increased significantly from 6.9% in 2015 to 44.5% in 2018. Patients who were counselled on OS and underwent OS were less likely to have surgery by vaginal approach (OR 0.0; 95% CI 0.0–0.1)(OR 0.0; 95% CI 0.0–0.0) involving diagnostic/therapeutic laparoscopy (OR 0.1; 95% CI 0.0–0.3)(OR 0.0; 95% CI 0.0–0.2). and ovarian cyst removal (OR 0.3; 95% CI 0.1–0.9) (OR 0.4; 95% CI 0.2–0.9).

Conclusion While the uptake of OS increased from 2015 to 2018, the majority of patients who were eligible for OS were not counselled and did not undergo OS. Its clinical practice varies on patient, surgery and physician characteristics. Therefore, an implementation strategy tailored to these associated characteristics is recommended.