Abstract
Objectives
This study was designed to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of providing medication
abortion in a primary care site without routine use of pre- and postprocedure transvaginal
sonography.
Methods
We performed a retrospective record review of 172 consecutive patients choosing medication
abortion at our clinic. Our protocol used sonography only as needed for specific indications.
All patients were intended to be followed up with serum human chorionic gonadotropin
(hCG) testing pre- and posttreatment.
Results
Of the 151 patients not lost to follow-up, 96 (63%) had pretreatment sonography according
to protocol or physician preference and 55 did not. Ninety-nine percent (95/96) of
those receiving initial sonography had a successful, and uneventful, medication abortion
treatment, while 98.2% (54/55) of those not receiving an initial sonography did so.
This difference was not statistically significant (.597 by one-sided Fisher's Exact
Test). All 119 of the women who did not receive postabortion sonography aborted completely.
Only 4 of the 91 women who had both pre- and postprocedure hCG measurements, all of
whom aborted successfully, had follow-up-to-initial hCG ratios of greater than 0.2
(20%).
Conclusion
Using a clinical protocol that involves obtaining pre- and posttreatment serum hCG
measurements, with sonograms only when indicated, has similar outcomes to a protocol
that uses mandatory pre- and posttreatment sonograms.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 27, 2006
Accepted:
August 2,
2006
Received in revised form:
July 27,
2006
Received:
September 7,
2005
Footnotes
���There was no funding for this study.
Identification
Copyright
© 2007 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
