Table 3.

Intraoperative findings and distribution of cervical dilatation in the two treatment groups

	Premenopausal women		Postmenopausal women
Characteristic	Self-administered vaginal placebo (n = 31)	Self-administered vaginal misoprostol (n = 34)	Self-administered vaginal placebo (n = 10)	Self-administered vaginal misoprostol (n = 11)
Mean difference in cervical dilatation (mm)	1.6 (95% CI 0.5–2.7)		N/A
Cervical dilatation (mm)
Mean (SD)	4.8 (2.0)	6.4 (2.4)	4.9 (1.5)	3.4 (2.7)
Median (range)	5 (<2 to 8)	6 (<2 to 11)	5 (3 to 7)	4 (<2 to 7)
Number of women achieving cervical dilatation ≥5 mm, n (%)	20 (65)	30 (88)	7 (70)	3 (27)
‘Difficult dilatation’, n (%)	10 (32)	4 (12)	2 (20)	7 (64)
Dilatation time (seconds), mean (SD)	68 (59)	47 (24)	49 (29)	70 (48)
Exposure to capsules (minutes), mean (SD)	765 (92)	754 (101)	840 (103)	840 (118)
Frequency of complications	4	2	2	1