Evaluation of a balloon dilator to augment midtrimester abortion.

A new balloon-type cervical dilating device (CDD) was inserted just after intra-amniotic infusion of a combination of prostaglandin F2alpha and hypertonic saline in an effort to shorten the interval from infusion to abortion. The CDD has both dilator and anchor balloons which are inflated with normal saline after insertion into the cervical canal. The infusion-to-abortion interval was shorter in patients with the CDD dilator inflated (14.6 +/- 2.1 hours) than in those with both dilating and anchor balloons inflated or in those aborting without the device in place at all (23.0 +/- 1.7 and 18.8 +/- 1.0 hours, respectively).