Short-term Effects of Catheter Pressure and Time Control in Vacuum Aspiration Abortion for Early High-risk Pregnancies

BACKGROUND: We aimed to evaluate an approach to induced abortions during early pregnancies that controls the suction pressure and restricts the duration of the procedure. METHODS: Three hundred patients programmed for induced early pregnancy abortions, hospitalized in the Shandong Provincial Maternity & Child-care Hospital from October 2013 to October 2015, were enrolled. Patients were randomly assigned to either research or control group. In the research group, operation pressure was controlled at 400 mmHg and operation time in the uterine cavity was kept at less than 75 s. In the control group, pressure ranged from 400–500 mmHg. Clinical variables were recorded for each patient until the fourth month after surgery, correlation and multivariate analyses were carried. RESULTS: Compared with control group, anesthesia and intervention durations and the suction pressure were significantly lower and the endometrial thickness of the first late follicular phase after operation was significantly larger in the research group (P<0.05). In the first postoperative month, the number of patients who reported menstruation flow decreased by more than 1/3 of its normal volume was significantly lower than that in the control group (P<0.05). In the third postoperative month, the thickness of the late follicular phase endometrium was significantly larger than that in the control group (P<0.001). The mean intraoperative pressure and intrauterine operation duration both influenced the endometrial thickness of follicular phase. CONCLUSION: Controlling the suction pressure and time for vacuum aspiration abortions during early pregnancies can reduce the incidence of intrauterine adhesions and better protect the endometrium.