Blood Cloting Risk Linked To Non Contraceptives Pills

Some women using hormonal contraceptives other than birth control pills may have an increased risk for serious blood clots, Danish researchers report.
 

These alternate hormone-releasing birth control methods include skin patches, implants and vaginal rings. 

To reduce the risk, women who use this should consider switching to the pill, the researcher said.

Deep vein thrombosis is a kind of clot that typically originates in the legs and can travel to the lungs, where it becomes an often deadly pulmonary embolism. 

Both types of clots combined are called venous thrombosis, according to the study, Symptoms includes leg pain, chest pain or sudden shortness of breath.

“The transdermal patch and vaginal ring confer at least a six fold increased risk of venous thrombosis as combined pills with desogestrel or drospirenone, a risk which is about twice the risk among women using second-generation pills with Levonorgestrel,” said Lidegaard, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology of the university of Copenhagen.

However, hormone-releasing intrauterine devices (IUDs) do not increase the risk of venous thrombosis, he said.

“Women should be informed about these risks in order to be able to choose the most appropriate hormonal contraceptive product,” Lindegaard said.

“There are hormonal contraceptive alternatives which confer less or no risk of venous thrombosis.”

Common implants include implanon and the newer Nexplanon; ortho Evra is the patch and the ring is Nuvaring. 

These products gradually release hormones into the body to prevent pregnancy. The findings were published May 10 in the online edition of the BMJ.

The researchers found that between 2000 and 2010 there were more than 3,400 diagnoses of venous thrombosis.

For women who did not use any type of hormonal contraceptive, two women developed clots for every 10,000 (combined) years they used contraceptives.

For women taking the pill containing the hormone Levonorgestrel, the risk for a clot was three times higher, or 6.2 clots for every 10,000 years they took the pill, the researchers found.

The risk to women who used a skin patch was about eight times higher, or 9.7 clots per 10,000 exposure years.

Women who used a vagina ring had a 6.5 times higher risk, or 7.8 events per 10,000 exposure years.

For women who used an implant that contain only progesterone, the increased risk for clots was very small. 

There was no risk for women using a progesterone-only IUD and it may have has a protective effect, the researchers noted.

Source; New York Times News Services