THE RELATION BETWEEN INDUCED-ABORTION AND ECTOPIC PREGNANCY

Objective: To determine whether having had one or more induced abortio ns increases a woman's risk of having an ectopic pregnancy. Methods: W e conducted a case-control study of all women admitted to a major metr opolitan hospital in Georgia with a surgical diagnosis of ectopic preg nancy during the period of October 1988 to August 1990. Controls were randomly selected from women seeking an induced abortion or delivering an infant at the same hospital. After exclusions, this analysis inclu ded 182 cases and 1056 controls. Stratified analysis and unconditional logistic regression were used to control for confounding and to estim ate the relative risks. Results: Approximately 90% of eases and contro ls were non-Hispanic, black women; 34% of the cases and 36% of the con trols reported a history of induced abortion. The crude odds ratio for having an ectopic pregnancy associated with a history of induced abor tion was 0.9 (95% confidence interval 0.6, 1.3). The odds ratio remain ed the same after adjusting for selected confounding variables and str atifying by the number of induced abortions, gestational age at the ti me of abortion, place where the abortion was performed, and the woman' s report of medical complications of the abortion. Conclusion: We foun d no evidence that having one or more induced abortions increases a wo man's risk of having an ectopic pregnancy. (C) 1997 by The American Co llege of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.