Patterns of Abortion Presentation by Using Ultrasound

Abstract

Obstetric Ultrasound is the use of ultrasound scans in pregnancy. Since its introduction in the late 1950’s ultrasonography has become a very useful diagnostic tool in Obstetrics. This study was designed with an aim to determine the patterns of abortion presentation by using ultrasound in Sudanese ladies, present in the areas of study. In this retrospective cohort study, a group of 100 subjects between the ages of 12 and 49 years, examined for various types of abortion in the Ultrasound Department's of Mohammed Ali Fadl Hospital and Elshaheed Khalid Medical Center in Khartoum- Sudan between the period of October 2010 and February 2011. Ultrasound brightness mode (B-mode) for the pelvis was performed using real time General Electric (GE) medical system, logic 5 expert ultrasound machine (Sony Corporation, Japan). The applied ultrasound transducer was a convex probe of a frequency 3.5 MHz. Depending on the sonographic features and characteristics of miscarriage, different and common type of abortion were diagnosed, which include such conditions; complete abortion was found in (39%) of cases; (30%) incomplete abortion, (11%) missed abortion, (7%) threatened abortion, (5%) inevitable abortion, (4%) recurrent; habitual abortion, (3%) septic abortion and (1%) criminal abortion. Complete abortion is the commonest type of spontaneous abortion while criminal; illegal abortion is pervasive among the types of induced abortion in females. Pregnant ladies exposed to smoke emitted from cigarettes by current smoker husband in addition to females affected by hypertension and diabetes mellitus considered to develop spontaneous abortion due to these predisposing factors.