Mifepristone Antagonization With Progesterone to Prevent Med... : Obstetrics & Gynecology

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, San Jose, and FPA Women's Health, Sacramento, California.

Corresponding author: Mitchell D. Creinin, MD, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA; email: [email protected].

Supported by the Society of Family Planning Research Fund.

Financial Disclosure Mitchell D. Creinin is a consultant for Danco Laboratories, providing medical consultation for clinicians that contact Danco with questions regarding mifepristone. Laura Dalton is an employee of Planned Parenthood. The other author did not report any potential conflicts of interest.

The authors thank the staff and physicians at the study centers for assisting with referral and conduct of the clinical trial.

The findings and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. or FPA Women's Health.

Each author has confirmed compliance with the journal's requirements for authorship.

Peer reviews are available at http://links.lww.com/AOG/B659.

arsenix on December 26th, 2019 at 21:41 UTC »

I wonder if there is any precedent for lawmakers to be held legally liable for encouraging dangerous medical practices like this. From the study it sounds like women who are subjected to this treatment (voluntarily or otherwise) have a high chance of complications or even death. If someone is harmed could they sue the lawmakers who allowed this? Particularly when there is public research that clearly indicates the dangers involved.

pengeek on December 26th, 2019 at 20:25 UTC »

Because no doctors were consulted on the writing of the legislation. These politicians are so ignorant, it’s absolutely mind-boggling.

skennedy987 on December 26th, 2019 at 16:17 UTC »

Medication abortion ‘reversal', which is unproven by medical science, involves two actions:

Using progesterone to counteract the initial drug taken for medication abortion, mifepristone.

Skipping misoprostol, the critically important followup drug used for this type of abortion.

I've cobbled together some helpful quotes from the study and a recent commentary from the researchers below.

The non-medical terms “abortion reversal,” “medical abortion reversal” and “abortion pill reversal” have been used to describe this purported treatment.

Two small case reports and one large case series have been published about such treatment. Commentaries in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and New England Journal of Medicine have outlined the numerous scientific and ethical problems with these reports.

These include lack of control groups, no confirmation of mifepristone ingestion, failure to establish viability prior to progesterone treatment, and providing experimental treatment without patient consent or institutional review board oversight

To address these issues, we conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial to evaluate continuing pregnancy rates, safety, and side effects of high-dose oral progesterone in patients who used mifepristone during early pregnancy.

Three of 12 patients enrolled experienced very heavy bleeding resulting in ambulance transport to an emergency department. With medical abortion, 0.6% of patients may have emergency department visits. We stopped the study because of these complications and, thus, could not quantify the full extent of this risk.

Patients who use mifepristone for abortion should be advised that not using misoprostol could result in severe hemorrhage, even with progesterone treatment.