The fallopian tube is not attached to the ovary; it sweeps eggs in
Surprisingly, there is a gap between each ovary and its fallopian tube. Around ovulation, hormones make the fringed end of the tube swell with blood, stretch out and brush gently across the ovary, and tiny beating hairs sweep the released egg inside. Fertilisation then usually happens in the tube's widest section.
The two tubes, also called oviducts or salpinges, run from the ovaries to the uterus. Each is a muscular channel on average 10 to 14 cm long and about 1 cm thick, held in place by a fold of the broad ligament. They carry the name of Gabriele Falloppio, an Italian priest and anatomist who has several other body parts named after him too.
Anatomists divide each tube into four stretches. The intramural part threads through the muscular wall of the uterus and is the narrowest, only 0.7 mm wide. Next comes the firm, muscular isthmus, rich in secretory cells, and then the ampulla, the longest and widest section at about 5 cm, curving over the ovary and folded inside. Finally the funnel-shaped infundibulum opens into the abdomen, fringed with fimbriae; one of these, the ovarian fimbria, is long enough to touch the ovary during ovulation, and it carries an especially dense blood supply.
Movement depends on teamwork. The lining has ciliated cells, about a quarter of the total, whose hairs beat towards the uterus, alongside secretory cells making up roughly 60 percent and smaller peg cells. Oestrogen boosts cilia formation. Around them, layers of smooth muscle squeeze in rhythmic waves. As the fertilised egg travels, it divides repeatedly and becomes a blastocyst, ready to implant in the uterus.
Problems in the tubes, such as inflammation or blockage, account for almost a third of infertility cases, often because damaged cilia can no longer move eggs or sperm. A recent review argues the tube is far from a passive pipe: it signals to the embryo, adjusts immune and metabolic responses, and receives signals back, something most assisted reproduction techniques bypass entirely.
Source: Fallopian tube
