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Women Being Induced Prefer Oral To Sublingual Misoprostol

Women appear to prefer to take oral misoprostol to induce labour rather than the equally effective sublingual form, suggest researchers.

Dr Ashalatha Shetty and colleagues, from the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital and Aberdeen Medical School, Aberdeen, Scotland, compared the efficacy and patient acceptability of the sublingual (50 micrograms) versus oral misoprostol (100 micrograms) in the induction of labour at term.

Participants in the non-blinded randomised comparative trial were 250 women at term with indications for labour induction. The drug was administered every four hours to a maximum of five doses.

Researchers defined the outcome measures as number of patients delivering vaginally within 24 hours of the induction, mode of delivery, neonatal outcomes and patient acceptability.

There was no significant difference between the sublingual and oral groups either in the number of women delivering vaginally within 24 hours of the induction or in the mean induction to delivery time. Nor was there any difference in the uterine hyperstimulation rates (1.6 percent in both groups), operative delivery rates or neonatal outcomes.

In the sublingual group, 92.6 percent found the induction acceptable with 15.8 percent finding the tablets with an unpleasant taste; in the oral group, the respective figures were 96.9 percent and 4 percent.

More women in the group on the oral (58.6 percent) versus the sublingual (40 percent) form of the drug reported they would consider the same method of induction again.
BJOG: an International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Vol. 109 (6). "Sublingual compared with oral misoprostol in term labour induction: a randomised controlled trial"

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