Termination of second trimester pregnancy with laminaria and intramuscular 15-methyl PGF2 alpha or 16-phenoxy-omega-17,18,19,20-tetranor PGE2 methyl sulfonylamide. A randomized multicenter study.

The present study included 592 second trimester healthy informed patients admitted to the participating hospitals for termination of pregnancy. In each patient one medium size laminaria tent was introduced into the cervical canal. The laminaria was withdrawn 12 h later and the patients were randomly allocated to either intramuscular infections of 15-methyl-PGF2 alpha (Prostin 15M), 0.25 mg every second hour, or 16-phenoxy-omega-17,18,19,20-tetranor PGE2 methyl sulfonylamide (Nalodor), 0.5 mg every fourth hour. Both treatment schedules were equally effective. The success rate was 95.6% and 94.5% for the E and F analogs, respectively, within 24 h of prostaglandin treatment. The mean duration of prostaglandin treatment was for Nalodor 10.8 h and for Prostin 15M 11.3 h. The mean total dose given of the two analogs was 1.85 mg and 1.65 mg, respectively. With the E analog, the frequency of gastrointestinal side effects was significantly lower than with the F analog. With the former compound, 83.2% had no episodes of diarrhea and 58.9% no vomiting. The mean number of episodes of vomiting and diarrhea per patient was for the E analog 1.0 and 0.4, respectively. The corresponding figures for the F analog were 2.3 episodes of vomiting and 2.2 episodes of diarrhea per patient. Only in three patients (0.5%) cervical laceration was found. It may be concluded that intramuscular administration of either analog after pretreatment with laminaria would appear to be more effective than other methods presently in use for termination of second trimester pregnancy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)