Frequency of gut injuries in unsafe abortion

Background: unsafe abortion adopted unfortunately in various part of our country is the major cause of death in pregnant woman. it is associated with number of surgical complications like uterine perforations,gut trauma,peritonitis,sepsis,hemorrhage aim: to find out the frequency of gut injuries in women after unsafe abortion. methods: this cross sectional surveyof 50 patients who had undergone unsafe abortion and presented with acute abdomen was conducted in department of surgery,mayo hospital,lahore in one year duration from january 2013 to december 2013. the non-probability purposive sampling technique was used in this study. detailed history was obtained from the patient,from the attendants and from the emergency services personals when the patient is unable to speak. the patient information on age,parity and method used for pregnancy termination was recorded at the time of admission. written consent was obtained. immediately,treatment was initiated to stabilize the patients taking care to note the vitals of the patient at presentation. during operation intra-operative findings were recorded (gut injury was noted and repair or stoma formation was done accordingly). other variables as abortion induced by trained/untrained practitioner were also noted.mean and standard deviation was calculated for age. results: the mean age of the patients was 25.9±6.8 years. there were 27(54%) patients married and 23(46%) patients unmarried. there were 23(46%) patients who had zero para,11(22%) patients had 1-3 para and 16(32%) patients more than 3 para. in the distribution of patients by frequency of gut injury,there were 15(30%) pts had frequency of gut injury and 35(70%) patients not having gut injury. conclusion: it is concluded from this study that frequency of gut injury is more in women after unsafe abortion presenting with acute abdomen to a tertiary care hospital,undergoing laparotomy.