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J. Jay Crittenden, MD
West Florida Medical Center Pensacola

JAMA. 1981;246(10):1088-1089.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The patient treatment flow chart in "Fatal Ectopic Pregnancy After Attempted Legally Induced Abortion" (1980;244:1705) suggests that the best way to ensure the absence of ectopic pregnancy is to identify chorionic villi at the time of abortion. However, the authors themselves indicate that identification of chorionic villi may not be easy, and "if doubt persists, the specimen should be sent for a pathologist's review." The flow chart is also interesting in that sonography is mentioned at the bottom as an apparently last-ditch effort to untangle complicated situations.

I would like to suggest that a much more direct and positive approach is to confirm intrauterine pregnancy by sonography before the abortion procedure. If there is an intrauterine pregnancy, one can rule out ectopic pregnancy, except for the extremely rare ectopic gestation coexisting with intrauterine pregnancy. If the uterus is empty in the face of a truly positive pregnancy . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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