Manual vacuum aspiration
| Background | |
| Abortion type | Surgical |
| First use | China 1958 and UK 1967 |
| Gestation | 3-12 weeks |
| Usage | |
| Figures are combined usage of MVA and EVA. | |
| Sweden | 42.7% (2005) |
| UK: Eng. & Wales | 64% (2006) |
| United States | 88.3% (2003) |
Vacuum or suction aspiration uses aspiration to remove uterine contents through the cervix. It may be used as a method of induced abortion, a therapeutic procedure used after miscarriage, or a procedure to obtain a sample for endometrial biopsy. The rate of infection is lower than any other surgical abortion procedure at 0.5%.
Some sources may use the terms dilation and evacuation or "suction" dilation and curettage to refer to vacuum aspiration, although those terms are normally used to refer to distinct procedures.
Vacuuming as a means of removing the uterine contents, rather than the previous use of a hard metal curette, was pioneered in 1958 by Drs Wu Yuantai and Wu Xianzhen in China, but their paper was only translated into English on the fiftieth anniversary of the study that "ultimately led to the technique becoming the world’s most common and safest obstetric procedure".
In Canada, the method was pioneered and improved on by Henry Morgentaler, achieving a complication rate of 0.48% and no deaths in over 5,000 cases. He was the first doctor in North America to use the technique, which he trained other doctors to use.
Dorothea Kerslake introduced the method into the United Kingdom in 1967 and published a study in the United States that further spread the technique.
Harvey Karman in the United States refined the technique in the early 1970s with the development of the Karman cannula, a soft, flexible cannula that avoided the need for initial cervical dilatation and so reduced the risks of puncturing the uterus.
Vacuum aspiration may be used as a method of induced abortion, as a therapeutic procedure after miscarriage, to aid in menstrual regulation, and to obtain a sample for endometrial biopsy. It is also used to terminate molar pregnancy.
When used as a miscarriage treatment or an abortion method, vacuum aspiration may be used alone or with cervical dilation anytime in the first trimester (up to 12 weeks gestational age). For more advanced pregnancies, vacuum aspiration may be used as one step in a dilation and evacuation procedure. Vacuum aspiration is the procedure used for almost all first-trimester abortions in many countries.
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Wikipedia