In a recently published paper in Blood,1 Kemmeren et al elegantly studied the effect of secondand third-generation oral contraceptives (OCs) on hemostatic variables that probe the activity of the protein C system. The authors showed that, because the progestagen poorly counteracted the effect of the estrogen component, desogestrel-containing OCs significantly increased activated protein C (APC)...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that oral desogestrel (DSG) plus testosterone would uniformly and rapidly suppress sperm concentrations in young men as effectively as levonorgestrel (LNG) plus testosterone and cause less high-density lipoprotein (HDL) suppression and weight gain. DESIGN Single-blind, randomized trial. SETTING VA Puget Sound and University of Washington, Seattle, Washington...

Third generation oral contraceptives (OC), containing the progestins desogestrel and gestodene, were introduced in the 1980s in a attempt to lower the risk of cardiovascular side effects. However, the observation that desogestrel and gestodene in combined OC were related to a 50 to 100% greater risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) suggested that the issue is more complex than originally thought...