Incidence of uterine rupture in second-trimester abortion with gemeprost alone compared to mifepristone and gemeprost

Abstract

Objectives: To compare uterine rupture rates in women having a medical abortion receiving gemeprost alone to those receiving mifepristone plus gemeprost.

Study design: We reviewed the records of women undergoing medical abortion at 13 0/7-23 6/7 weeks from January 2007 to December 2014 at a single center in Italy. Prior to January 2011, we used gemeprost 1 mg vaginally every 3 h up to a maximum of five doses. After January 2011, we added mifepristone 200 mg orally 24 h prior to the same gemeprost protocol. The primary outcome of the study was the incidence of uterine rupture. We compared the outcome between women receiving gemeprost alone with the combination of gemeprost and mifepristone.

Results: One thousand and sixty-one (58.5%) and 753 (41.5%) women underwent medical abortion in the gemeprost-alone and the gemeprost/mifepristone groups, respectively. Five (0.47%) uterine ruptures occurred in the gemeprost and four uterine ruptures occurred in the gemeprost/mifepristone groups, respectively (0.53%) (p=.89). All uterine ruptures occurred in women with prior cesarean delivery.

Conclusions: We rep orted no difference in the incidence of uterine rupture between the gemeprost-alone and gemeprost and mifepristone groups.

Implications: Uterine rupture is a rare complication of second-trimester medical abortion with gemeprost. Use of mifepristone prior to gemeprost does not affect this risk.

Keywords: Abortion; Cesarean section; Gemeprost; Mifepristone; Uterine rupture.