History
Vacuuming as a means of removing the uterine contents, rather than the previous use of a hard metal curette, was pioneered in 1958 by Drs Wu Yuantai and Wu Xianzhen in China, but their paper was only translated into English on the fiftieth anniversary of the study that "ultimately led to the technique becoming the world’s commonest and safest obstetric procedure".
In Canada, the method was pioneered and improved on by Henry Morgentaler, achieving a complication rate of 0.48% and no deaths in over 5,000 cases. He was the first doctor in North America to use the technique, which he trained other doctors to use.
Dorothea Kerslake introduced the method into the United Kingdom in 1967 and published a study in the United States that further spread the technique.
Harvey Karman in the United States refined the technique the early 1970s with the development of the Karman cannula, a soft, flexible cannula that avoided the need for initial cervical dilatation and so reduced the risks of puncturing the uterus.
Read more about this topic: Vacuum Aspiration
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