BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate the association of total duration of oral contraceptive usage with time to conception. METHODS This was a prospective study of 8497 planned pregnancies drawn from a population that recruited 85% of eligible couples in South-West England who were expecting a baby in a 21 month period. Self-completion questionnaires were administered at 18 wee...

Since their introduction in the 1960s the safety of combined oral contraceptives (COCs) has been widely debated. The difficulty in determining if COC use increases the risk of developing cancer is due to: • the long latent period between exposure to the potential carcinogen and overt malignant disease • the fact that due to the developments in COCs women are likely to have taken a variety of di...

BACKGROUND Women with mutations in either the BRCA1 or the BRCA2 gene have a high lifetime risk of ovarian cancer. Oral contraceptives protect against ovarian cancer in general, but it is not known whether they also protect against hereditary forms of ovarian cancer. METHODS We enrolled 207 women with hereditary ovarian cancer and 161 of their sisters as controls in a case-control study. All ...

We present two cases of female patients with a history of depression who developed depressive symptoms after treatment with hormonal contraceptives (HC) in the form of combined oral contraceptive pill, progestin-only pill and combined contraceptive vaginal ring. The presented two cases are based on the women's medical records complemented by personal interviews. The existing literature on the e...

A 21-tablet oral contraceptive packet containing .5 mg dl-norgestrel and .03 mg estradiol was clinically tested in 1085 women of reproductive age for a total of 7323 cycles. There was 1 pregnancy which may have been due to incorrect tablet use. 98.2% of the cycles fell within a 28-day plus or minus 3-day pattern. 21% of the women had some breakthrough bleeding at some time, but it was confin...

Serum and urinary levels of unconjugated testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, and oestradiol were measured by specific radioimmunoassays in 10 healthy women in the early follicular phase of their menstrual cycle and in nine healthy women taking oral contraceptives. The contraceptive group had testosterone levels 1-3 times higher and dihydrotestosterone levels two times higher than those in the co...

Currently available contraceptive methods have not eliminated the burden of unintended pregnancy. Future progress will require technological advancements, leading to the development of novel and highly effective birth control strategies that will be acceptable to the general population. Included are highlights of some of the ongoing research, demonstrating the development of methods with the po...

1. Nailfold capillary pressure, digital blood flow and skin temperature have been measured on days 7, 14, 21 and 28 of the menstrual cycle in 10 women on a combined oral contraceptive pill and 10 control subjects with normal menstrual cycles. 2. Capillary pressure and digital blood flow were statistically significantly higher in the group taking an oral contraceptive pill compared with control ...

The relation of oral contraceptive use to the risk of myocardial infarction was assessed in a hospital-based case-control study of women aged 25-64 years conducted from 1985 to 1988 in New England; 910 women with first myocardial infarctions were compared with 1,760 control women. Oral contraceptive use, after discontinuation, was not associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction, ...

Migraine with aura is one of the major subtypes of migraine, and can be associated with ischaemic brain infarction. Use of oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) increases the risk of infarction in this type of migraine. Seizures and migraine also have a complex relationship, one element of which is migrainetriggered seizures. We report a case of bilateral occipital lobe infarction and migraine-trigge...