Cervical Preparation of Abortions Under Paracervical Block in the First Trimester: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Surgical abortion is one of the most frequently surgery of women in the world. 43 millions are annually performed in the world.

Legal surgical abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy is a low risk intervention with a mortality rate lower than 1/100 000 abortions, with a risk of complications from 0.3 % to 3.4 %. In France, about 75 % of the surgical abortions are performed under general anesthesia (GA). Nevertheless, the risk of complications is higher under GA. The risk of death is more important (0,58 for 100 000) with GA. GA increases by a factor 1,7 the risk of bleeding, 2,2 the risk of uterine perforation, 8,2 the risk of intra-abdominal bleeding, 2,9 the risk of cervical tearing, and 5 the risk of transfusion. The difficulty of pain control under local anesthetia (LA) explains this method is less choosen by the women. Indeed, a lot of women consider the surgical abortion under LA extremely uncomfortable. The paracervical block for the abortion under LA in the first trimester demonstrated its efficiency in the reduction of the per-operating pain whatever the term of the pregnancy compared with the absence of anesthesia. The cervical preparation demonstrated benefits in term of cervical dilation, per-operating bleeding, and complications incidence. The misoprostol and the mifepristone are 2 molecules recommended for the cervical preparation on the first trimester