Clinical Question:

What are the long-term health consequences of medical abortion?

Synopsis:

These researchers used a Danish registry that tracked all women who had an elective abortion for nonmedical reasons. They identified women who had a medical abortion using mifepristone, misoprostol, or other prostaglandins between 1999 and 2004. These data were linked to other registries to determine the outcome of future pregnancies, ectopic pregnancies, and other potential complications. Data from a separate cohort study were compared with the registry data and the researchers found excellent agreement. A total of 30,349 women had an abortion for nonmedical reasons, of whom 11,682 had 11,814 pregnancies (women whose abortion was induced after 9 weeks or who had missing data were excluded). In that group, 2710 had a medical abortion and 9104 had a surgical abortion. The incidence of ectopic pregnancy was the same in both groups (2.4% vs 2.3%). There was also no difference in the subsequent risks of live birth, spontaneous abortion, mean gestational age, preterm birth, birth weight, and stillbirth between the medical and surgical abortion groups. There was a trend favoring medical abortion with regard to preterm birth and low birth weight.

Bottom Line:

Subsequent pregnancy outcomes are similar after medical abortion using prostaglandins to the outcomes after surgical abortion.

excerpted from:
"No Long-Term Harm From Medical Abortion"
InfoPOEs © Wiley Subscription Services, Inc October 04, 2007