Mid-trimester abortions: a decade in review

At the Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, the total number of abortions increased over the 10-year period Jan. 1, 1970 to Dec 31, 1979 but the percentage of mid-trimester abortions performed fell after 1974 to 2.1% at the end of the study period. The authors reviewed the records of 1422 patients who underwent mid-trimester abortions over the 10 years of the study to determine which technique was the safest, the quickest and the most commonly performed. Initially, saline instillation was the commonest method but this has been replaced by injection of prostaglandin F2 alpha, which was found to be the quickest acting of the fluids used. Hysterotomy and hysterectomy were associated with higher complication rates than other methods, confirming the authors' belief that they should be used only under exceptional circumstances.