Tratamento do abortamento do primeiro trimestre da gesta？？o: curetagem versus aspira？？o manual a vácuo

purpose: to perform a comparative study between uterine curettage and manual vacuum aspiration (mva) in the treatment of first-trimester miscarriages. methods: a hundred and two patients were included up to the 12th week of pregnancy, with diagnosis of miscarriage, admitted at maternidade escola januário cicco, between january 1998 and july 2001, and who were randomly submitted to uterine curettage or to mva. the analyzed variables were: pain control, need of mechanical cervical dilation, uterine emptying time, incidence of complications and stay in hospital. the patients were reevaluated clinically and echographycally between 7 and 10 days after the procedures. the c2 test was used for statistical analysis. results: general anesthesia was used in all the patients submitted to uterine curettage and in none of those who were submitted to mva, whose pain was controlled with local anesthesia in 64% of the cases. the differences between the two methods concerning the need of mechanical cervical dilation, emptying time and incidence of complications were not significant. the stay in hospital was significantly shorter in patients submitted to mva. conclusions: no advantage of one method over the other was observed in regard to the technique and the incidence of complications. the unneeded use of general anesthesia and the significantly shorter stay in hospital indicate that mva should be recommended for all services with obstetrical assistance, increasing resolvability of the cases and decreasing risks, improving the quality of assistance.