[First-trimester abortion at University Hospital Center in Dakar, Senegal: utility of manual vacuum aspiration]

The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the utility of the manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) for management of incomplete first-trimester abortions. All patients treated for incomplete first trimester abortion using MVA under local anesthesia at University Hospital Center in Dakar from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2003 were included. A total of 2379 pregnancy losses were recorded among the 14476 patients admitted during the study period. First-trimester abortion was treated using the MVA method under local anesthesia in 1372 cases (57.7%). For 87% of patients, the duration of hospitalization was less than 12 hours. The epidemiological characteristics of these women were young age (mean, 29 years old), low parity (mean, 2 children) and low gestational age (mean, 10 weeks after amenorrhea). Spontaneous abortion accounted for 94.4% of cases and clandestine abortion for 5.6%. No complications occurred during MVA procedures and no morbidity was observed with a follow-up of one year. These findings show that MVA is a safe and effective method for completing incomplete first-trimester abortions. In our practice use of this simple technique led to a considerable improvement in post-abortion care.