The potential of RU 486 for medical termination of pregnancy :an acceptability and feasibility study

iaoning Research Institute for Family Planning Objective:To compare the acceptability of medical abortion with mifepristone and that of surgical abor- tion.Design : A non-randomized comparative study of two treatment methods.Setting :A clinic in the National Research Institute for Family Planning Subjects: 168 women with gestational age of 42～56 days requesting termination were given the choice of medical abortion with RU 486 or vacuum aspiration.Intervention: For medical abortion RU486 600 mg was given on the day of admission and misoprostol 400 μg 48 hours later.Surgical abortionwas performed with vacuum aspiration.Results :A hundred women chose medical abortion,while 68 chose surgical abortion.The complete abortion rate with the medical and surgical abortion were 91%and 100%,respectively.The main reason for choosing medical abortion was less pain(75%),while those for choosing surgical abortion were high effec tiveness(41.2%)and short abortion time(57.4%).The main bad features for the medical method were prolonged bleeding(25%)and more blood loss( 11%).The mean duration of bleeding after abortion was 16.1±9.0 days,significantly longer than after the surgical abortion(8.9±6.1 days)。Conclusion :Medical abortion with RU 486 is more acceptable,the only drawback is the prolonged postabortion bleeding Further study to reduce bleeding after medical abortion is needed.