PREGNANCY INTERRUPTION BY VAGINAL MISOPROSTOL

A total of 132 pregnant women with average gestational age of 14.2 wee ks (range 11-22 weeks) undergoing legal abortion volunteered for a tri al utilizing vaginal administration of misoprostol. In 106 women a dos e of 800 mug was utilized, whilst in 26 women 1,200-1,600 mug were giv en. Nonsurgical expulsion of the fetus was successful in 117 cases (88 .6%). Four cases had to be excluded for various social reasons. A tota l of 11 did not achieve fetal expulsion within 56 h after application of misoprostol. These cases (11/132; 8.3%) were considered failures. P revious reports in the literature of toxicity trials on animals report ing no fetotoxic nor teratogenic effects of misoprostol at doses up to 10,000 mug/kg body weight seem to be of no validity in the human sinc e we could demonstrate that almost 80% of pregnancies were interrupted at a dose of 10-15 mug/kg body weight. The conclusion is that vaginal administration of this prostaglandin analogue, not requiring cool tem perature for storage, is remarkably effective in achieving safe interr uption of pregnancy without any significant complications.