Between 1978 and 1984, 186 women had interval laparoscopic and postpartum Hulka clip sterilization at the University of Missouri Health Sciences Center. We reached 109 (58%) of these women for follow-up. All had had their sterilization procedures at least one year earlier, and the average duration of follow-up was 3 1/2 years. The procedure failed in four patients, for a failure rate of 3.7%; three of these failures occurred more than 12 months after sterilization. These data suggest that long-term (more than 12 months) follow-up studies may be necessary to document more accurately the failure rate of Hulka clip sterilization.