General anaesthesia, a risk factor for complication following induced abortion?

Abstract

Of the 10,000 abortions performed at the Regional hospital at Modena in Italy between 1982 and 1986, 199 (2%) led to early complications. Investigation of the relationship between the risk of haemorrhage, injury, other complications and all complications and eight explanatory variables revealed that the adjusted odds ratio associated with the use of general anaesthetic compared with local anaesthetic was 4.6 (95% CI, 2.2-9.5) for haemorrhage, 1.3 (95% CI, 0.78-2.2) for injury, 1.6 (95% CI, 1.0-2.6) for other complications and 1.8 (95% CI, 1.4-2.5) for all complications. It is speculated that if the relationship between use of general anaesthetic and risk of complication is causal there could be about 40% fewer cases of complications and 75% fewer cases of haemorrhage following induced abortion if local anaesthesia were used rather than general anaesthesia.

PIP: Of the 10,000 abortion performed at the Regional Hospital at Modena, Italy between 1982-86, 199 (2%) led to early complications. Investigation of the relationship between the risk of hemorrhage, injury, other complications, and all complications and 8 explanatory variables revealed that the adjusted odds ratio associated with the use of general anesthetic compared with local anesthetic was 4.6 (95% CI, 2.2-9.5) for hemorrhage, 1.3 (95% CI, 0.78-2.2) for injury, 1.6 (95% CI, 1.0-2.6) for other complications, and 1.8 (95% CI, 1/4-2/5) for all complications. It is suggested that if the relationship between the use of general anesthetic and risk of complications is causal, there could be about 40% fewer cases of complications and 75% fewer cases of hemorrhage following induced abortion if local anesthesia were used rather than general anesthesia.