Oral abortion pill
The risk of serious infection and death has been cut by giving the "abortion pill" orally.
By Gene Emery
Pic: iStockphoto.com
Article originally in
Reuters
Giving the "abortion pill" orally instead of vaginally and with
antibiotics cut the risk of serious infection and death by 93 percent,
researchers at Planned Parenthood reported on Wednesday.
The threat of infection is now down to 1 in 16,000 from one in
1,000, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"Our goal was to make a safe procedure even safer," Planned Parenthood's Mary Fjerstad said in a telephone interview.
The "abortion pill" consists of giving mifepristone, also known as
RU-486, to stop the pregnancy and a second drug, misoprostol, two days
later to help the body expel the fetus.
At Planned Parenthood, where about 97,000 women receive a medical
abortion each year, misoprostol was initially given vaginally because
it is easily absorbed there.
Doctors began exploring alternative ways to give the treatment after
four women from the U.S. and one in Canada died from a rare bacterial
infection after receiving the abortion pill in 2005.
"When medical abortion was first introduced, there was little
concern about the risk of infection, because there is no use of
instruments in the cervix or uterus unless the procedure fails.
However, it is clear that serious infections do occur," the researchers
wrote.
In contrast, in Europe, where the treatment had been used far longer
and the vaginal administration of misoprostol was less common, there
were no deaths. In United Kingdom, pregnant women routinely received
antibiotics.
So in March 2006, Planned Parenthood started giving misoprostol by
mouth, telling women to let it dissolve between the cheek and the gum.
That way it can go directly into the bloodstream through the thin mucus
membranes.
In addition, all women were either given antibiotics or some women
received antibiotics if tests showed that had either of two sexually
transmitted diseases, chlamydia or gonorrhea.
In July 2007 the rules were changed again to give everyone antibiotics, without the testing.
The first change cut the infection rate by 73 percent.
Giving antibiotics to everyone shaved the rate by another 20 percentage points.
By the end of the study, there were only 3 infections out of 46,777 women who took the pills.
Fjerstad said she was not sure why taking the pill vaginally might
cause infections. She also was unsure if the results would change how
doctors practice elsewhere.
"I know some providers in other countries have said, 'We just don't
have problems with infections.' If they don't, that's great. But they
may not have enough followup to know what their rate of infection
really is," she said.
"I think this will cause providers to consider what their regimen
is, and I think they will at least think about whether antibiotics are
appropriate in their environment."