Surgical evacuation after medical or surgical abortion increases risk for developing intrauterine adhesions
FRIDAY, March 23, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Intrauterine adhesions (IUA) following an induced abortion are rare, but risk increases when surgical evacuation is involved, according to a study published online March 13 in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.
Maarit Mentula, M.D., from the University of Helsinki, and colleagues retrospectively assessed data from a nationwide registry to identify women who had an induced abortion in Finland between 2000 and 2008, as well as matched controls.
The researchers identified a total of 12 (1.5 per 10,000) IUA diagnoses from 79,960 eligible induced abortions. The rate of IUA was 1.5 per 10,000 medically-induced abortions and 2.0 cases per 10,000 surgically-induced abortions (P = 0.19). In a subgroup analysis, surgical treatment of the remaining products of conception following abortion significantly increased the risk of IUA (odds ratio, 5.50; P = 0.012).
“These results suggest that trauma to a recently pregnant uterus is an important risk factor for IUA,” the authors write.
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