Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 31, 1995 TAG: 9508310089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
A large new study being published in a leading medical journal concludes that abortions can be safely and effectively performed in early pregnancy by administering two prescription drugs that are already widely available.
If even bigger studies bear out that finding, the treatment is expected to transform the practice of abortion in this country by allowing women to obtain abortions without surgery and in the privacy of a doctor's office, specialists in reproductive health said Wednesday at a news conference here where the results of the research were discussed.
Each year about 800,000 women in the United States seek surgical abortions before the ninth week of pregnancy, the period during which the drug regimen is effective. In a recent review of studies on women's abortion preferences, the Population Council found that 60 percent to 70 percent would choose a drug-induced abortion over a surgical one.
In the new report, being published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Richard U. Hausknecht, a New York City gynecologist who is affiliated with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said 96 percent of 178 women had successfully aborted after the drug treatment.
The finding extends the results of smaller studies by other researchers and confirms Hausknecht's statements in interviews last year that in a series of treatments at his office, he had found that termination of pregnancy with the drugs was safe and effective, though not necessarily cheaper than a surgical abortion.
``This is a very exciting option from a public health perspective,'' said Dr. Eric Schaff, family medicine specialist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. ``It will make abortion more accessible to women, since it can be used by family physicians all over the United States where there may not be surgeons around, especially since an increasing number of gynecologists are unwilling to do abortions.''
The approach uses in succession two inexpensive medications - methotrexate, which interferes with cell growth and division, and then misoprostol, an ulcer drug that causes uterine contractions - to produce abortion within the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The technique is most successful during the first five weeks of pregnancy, however, calculated from the first day of a woman's last menstrual period.
In most cases, it takes seven to 10 days from the start of drug treatment for the abortion to be completed. But unlike surgical abortions, which are best done after six weeks of pregnancy, the drug regimen can be begun as soon as a woman knows she is pregnant, Hausknecht said.
by CNB