Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 24, 2026
Auricular Point Acupressure Therapy: A Safe and Effective Treatment for Postsurgical Abortion Recovery
Published on: February 3, 2026
A randomized controlled trial comparing surgical termination of pregnancy with and without continuous ultrasound
Ganesh Acharya1, Heulwen Morgan, Leslie Paramanantham
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The Whittington Hospital, London, UK. ganesh.acharya@unn.no
Context:
Approximately 50 million abortions are performed worldwide each year, and the majority of them are surgical terminations of pregnancy (STOP). Therefore, the safety of this procedure is a global public health concern. It is not known whether routine use of intraoperative ultrasound guidance improves the outcome of first trimester STOP.
Objective:
To investigate whether surgical termination of pregnancy in the first trimester with continuous ultrasound guidance is safer than the conventional procedure without ultrasound guidance.
Design:
A randomized controlled trial.
Setting:
A teaching hospital in London, UK.
Participants:
Women undergoing STOP in the first trimester.
Intervention:
PARTICIPANTS were randomized to have the procedure with or without continuous ultrasound guidance.
Outcome Measures:
The primary outcome measures were intraoperative and short-term complications (anaesthetic complication, haemorrhage, ongoing pregnancy, cervical trauma, uterine perforation, need for laparoscopy and/or laparotomy, repeat evacuation, and infection). The secondary outcomes were the blood loss, procedure time, and convalescence time.
Results:
A total of 230 women (115 in each arm of the trial) participated in the study. Follow-up data were available for analysis in all but 15 (8 in control group and 7 in intervention group) cases. Baseline characteristics were similar in both groups. The overall complication rate was 9.8 percent. STOP under ultrasound guidance had a complication rate of 3.7% (4/108) in comparison to 15.9% (17/107) without ultrasound (RR 0.23, 95% CI 0.08-0.67). Intraoperative ultrasound guidance also had a statistically significant beneficial effect in reducing the blood loss, procedure time, and convalescence time.
Conclusion:
STOP in the first trimester under continuous ultrasound guidance was associated with a lower rate of complications than the conventional procedure without ultrasound.