EARLY PREGNANCY TERMINATION;

USING TAMOXIFEN AND MISOPROSTOL

Abstract

Objective: To determine the effectiveness and safety of elective termination of pregnancies from 56 days gestational age 2nd
trimester in which ingestion of 20 mg tamoxifen for 4 days was followed by oral administration of 1 or 2 days of 800 μg misoprostol. Design: A
clinical trial. Setting: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Nishtar Hospital, and Private setup, Multan. Period: January 2009 to
January 2010. Material and methods: A total of 50 patients were included in the trial on outdoor basis. Results: Of the 17 subjects with a
gestational age between 50 and 56 days, 15 (88.2%) aborted their pregnancies. The mean duration of uterine bleeding in the group of women
who aborted their pregnancies was 8.1 days with a range of 1-34 days. Conclusions: In conclusion, the regimen of oral tamoxifen followed by
oral administration of misoprostol was found to be an effective and rapid method to electively terminate early gestation of 8 weeks duration or
less with no serious side effects.