(OMMENT Quinacrine Pellets: An Examination

The demand for sterilization is increasing in many countries1 In fact, female sterilization is the most wide ly used contraceptive method, with over 138 million married women of reproductive age relying on its protection. In industrial&d countries, the average woman now achieves her desired family size within six years of marriage, and spends 50% of her reproductive life potentially fertile but not wanting any more children? In developing countries, with an expanding number of women in fertile age-groups and a backlog of unmet need for fertility control, an estimated 150 million new sterilizations-many of them female sterilizations--could be performed in many of these countries during the 199Os.j Female sterilization has been considerably simplified over the past few years, particularly with the introduction and widespread utilization of minilaparotomy, which can be performed as an outpatient procedure. Despite these advances, female sterilization is a surgical procedure;