Manual vacuum aspiration for second-trimester pregnancy termination.
OBJECTIVE
To compare manual and electric vacuum aspiration for surgical abortions between 14 and 18 weeks of pregnancy.


METHODS
A consecutive case series of pregnant women presenting to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center for abortion. There were 73 women in the manual vacuum aspiration group and 37 women in the electric vacuum aspiration group. Dilatation and evacuation was performed using manual or electric vacuum aspiration according to protocol. Procedure time was assessed with the t-test.


RESULTS
In all cases, abortion was performed with initial vacuum. Group sizes were sufficient to detect a 20% difference in mean procedure time with 80% power (calculated with two separate S.D.s for procedure time). There was no significant difference in procedure time between the two groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Manual vacuum aspiration can be safely and effectively used in second-trimester abortion procedures and should be more widely investigated for this purpose.
D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D002983:Clinical Competence; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011262:Pregnancy Trimester, Second; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors; D014619:Vacuum Curettage / Q000379:methods*