Efficacy and cycle changes of emergency contraception with levonorgestrel
with women at different ages
G. Kolarov (1), T. Chernev (1), S. Georgiev (1), B. Pehlivanov (2)
University Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology ‘Maichin Dom’, Sofia,
Bulgaria (1); Medical University, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2)
Objectives: There exists certain reservation in prescribing emergency
contraception (EC), mainly for fear of possible occurrence of disturbances in
the menstrual cycle (MC). This applies particularly to the fear of prescribing
such a type of contraception to teenagers. For these specific reasons, the
present study aims to assess the efficacy of EC with Levonorgestrel (LNG) and
the possible cycle changes after its use by women from different age groups.
Design & Methods: The study is an open-label one, including 158
(n=158) healthy, non-pregnant women, with regular menstrual cycle. The subjects
were divided into three groups. The first group – G1 included 52 girls aged
between 16 and 19 years. The second group – G2 included 55 women aged between
20 and 25 years. The third group – G3 includes 51 women aged between 26 and 30
years. All subjects have had one unprotected or faultily protected sexual
intercourse. All of the women participating in the study had administered 0.75
mg LNG within the immediately following 72 hours. The same dosage was
administered repeatedly 12 hours after the first intake. The efficacy of the EC
has been estimated following Dixon’s method. Variational analysis has been
applied for processing the data obtained from the study.
Results: A single pregnancy was registered in each of the three
surveyed groups, amounting to pregnancy rate – 1.92 %, 1.82% and 1.96%,
respectively. There were not significant differences in the efficacy rate in the
three groups – G1 (78.76 %), G2 (80,38 %) and G3 (79.61), respectively. The
ratio of women with unchanged cycle in the groups is – G1 51.92 %, (G2) –
56.36 % and G3 – (54.59). No significant differences conditioned by the
different age range of the three groups were registered in the menstrual cycle
changes and the length of bleeding.
Conclusions: Emergency contraception with LNG provides effective
contraception without serious changes in the menstrual cycle irrespective of age
differences as the results in all three studied groups show.
