4% Intrauterine Lidocaine Infusion for Pain Management in First Trimester Abortions

Recent studies have investigated the use of local anesthetics (i.e. lidocaine, mepivacaine) to lessen the pain experienced with minor gynecologic procedures such as endometrial biopsy and office hysteroscopy. Local anesthetic injected into the uterine cavity has been demonstrated effective in some studies at decreasing patient pain associated with these intrauterine procedures at an anesthetic concentration of at least 2%. Based on this evidence, we hypothesized that an intrauterine lidocaine infusion may reduce patient pain during first trimester abortions.