Abdul Karim Al-Zabedi MD1, Mohamed Gouda2 , Basoma saad2
Head of Radiological Department in Military Hospital , 2Arab board of radiology)
Introduction:
Abortion is Loss of a pregnancy during the first 20 weeks, at a time that the fetus cannot survive. Such a loss may be involuntary (a "spontaneous" abortion), or it may be voluntary ("induced" or "elective" abortion) (1). Miscarriage is the layman's term for spontaneous abortion, an unexpected 1st trimester pregnancy loss (2). Abortions are further categorized according to their degree of completion. These categories include Threatened, Inevitable, Incomplete, Complete, and Septic.
A missed abortion was defined in 12 December 1998 as the retention in the uterus of a dead fetus two months or more after its death. However many sources do not consider a definite period and define it as dead conceptus
within uterine cavity, occurring between 8- 18 weeks. Before 18 weeks, a dead baby is usually aborted without his mother knowing that he is dead. Occasionally however, the abortion is delayed for several weeks. When this happens the only sign of fetal death is that her uterus fails to grow. Alternatively, she may have a threatened abortion, which stops bleeding, and is followed by a brown discharge and no further periods (3).
About one in five early pregnancies will not survive. These will grow for a while, with Human chorionic gonadotrophin HCG in the urine and serum, but eventually will stop growing normally, and then will stop growing at all. (3).
Clinically, manifestations of pregnancy gradually
