Pennsylvania health officials said renewed inspections uncovered poor conditions at two Philadelphia-area abortion clinics in the months after a drug investigation revealed a "house of horrors" facility operating for years in the city.

The Iranian-trained physician who operated the two Abortion as an Alternative Inc clinics in Philadelphia received scathing reports and was ordered to suspend performing abortions.

Two days later, Dr Soleiman M. Soli announced he would shut down the clinics instead.

He then retired, according to the state Department of Health. Conflicting records with the same month and day of birth show Soli is either 73 or 83.

Soli's operations are distinct from those of Dr Kermit Gosnell, whose Women's Medical Society in Philadelphia was the target of a major Philadelphia grand jury investigation.

Gosnell is charged with eight counts of murder for the deaths of a woman and seven babies born alive, then fatally stabbed in the spine with scissors.

Problems at Soli's clinics were found after Pennsylvania regulators renewed long-dormant routine inspections of free-standing abortion clinics around the state in the wake of the investigation into Gosnell and his staff.

At Soli's clinics, the Department of Health found drugs decades past their expiration dates, inadequate or inoperable equipment, poor record-keeping and mishandling of foetal tissue.