A new study on 12,000 Danish women has found that pill-induced abortions do not an extra pose any risk of ectopic pregnancies or spontaneous abortions in future pregnancies than the more common surgical abortions.

According to a New England Journal of Medicine study, the pill also did not pose any extra risk of premature delivery and delivering babies with low birth weight. The study, which is considered the best study to date of the impact of this newer abortion method on future pregnancies, used a national abortion registry to identify all women in Denmark who had abortions between 1999 and 2004

A test released Wednesday shows that the drug misoprostol is almost as effective as surgery for removing tissue that remains in the uterus after a failed pregnancy.

The drug, called Cytotec by manufacturers G.D. Searle and Pfizer Inc., has a success rate of around 85 percent, says Jun Zhang of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the chief author of the study

Five women who took the abortion pill RU-486 have died from bacterial infections since its U.S. introduction nearly five years ago, the manufacturer reported on Monday.

Mifeprex already carries a warning about the possibility that women who take the drug could experience serious and sometimes fatal infections. The company is updating the label to give physicians more information to help them spot the problem, Danco spokeswoman Cynthia Summers said