Review articleMortality of induced abortion, other outpatient surgical procedures and common activities in the United States☆
Section snippets
Methods
We calculated the abortion-related mortality rate during the decade 2000–2009 by dividing the number of deaths related to legal abortion in the 50 states and Washington, DC, during those years by the number of legal abortions occurring in the same time period. We obtained the former figure from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which performs active surveillance of multiple sources, including state vital records, public health agencies, maternal mortality review committees,
Results
The mortality rate related to abortion at any time in pregnancy during the years 2000–2009 in the United States was 0.7 per 100,000 abortions (Table).
We found two qualifying studies that provide data on deaths associated with plastic surgical procedures performed outside of a hospital. The first included all operations performed at ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) licensed by the state of Florida in the year 2000 [5]. The second included all plastic surgery cases at ASCs accredited by the
Discussion
The rate of death from legal induced abortion in the United States over the decade 2000–2009 was 0.7 deaths per 100,000 procedures. This risk has been stable over the past 35 years despite changes in patient demographics and procedural techniques. [3] This mortality rate was at least as low as the mortality rate associated with plastic surgery at licensed or accredited ASCs in the same decade, approximately equivalent to the proportion of marathon runners who died during races in the same time
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Funding: This work was supported by an anonymous donor.