[Termination of early pregnancy by two regimens of mifepristone with misoprostol: a multicentre clinical trial]

Abstract

Six hundred women in early pregnancy (< 49 days), who requested medical abortion were randomly allocated into 3 groups. In group 1 (n = 301), an initial dose of mifepristone 50 mg was given, followed by 25 mg every 12 hours up to a total dose of 150 mg mifepristone, plus a single oral dose misoprostol 600 micrograms in the morning of the third day. In group 2 (n = 150), the same regimen of mifepristone was given, but dl-15-methyl-PGF2 alpha (PG05) 1 mg vaginal suppository was inserted on the third day. In group 3 (n = 149), a single dose of mifepristone 200 mg was given and misoprostol 600 micrograms was used as in group 1. The complete abortion rate were 95.3%, 97.3% and 95.4% incomplete abortion rate were 3.0%, 2.0% and 2.6% for group 1, 2 and 3, respectively. No significant difference of the two rates was shown among these 3 groups approximate 82% of the women had lower abdominal pain. The overall, occurrence of diarrhea in PG05 group (38.7%) was significantly higher than that in the other 2 groups (21.6 and 20.1%, respectively) (P < 0.001), and so was the occurrence of vomiting. It was concluded that misoprostol, as an orally-effective prostaglandin, in combination with 2 regimens of mifepristone for induced abortion during early pregnancy was as effective as PG05 vaginal suppository. In addition, it has the advantages of convenience for use, less side effects, easy storage and transfer, and low cost.