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Oral antifertility measures
Author(s) -
Epstein Jeanne A.,
Kupperman Herbert S.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt196232216
Subject(s) - ovulation , medicine , endocrine system , fertility , pregnancy , clinical research , population , developed country , incidence (geometry) , family planning , physiology , gynecology , obstetrics , research methodology , hormone , biology , physics , environmental health , optics , genetics
A review of the experimental and clinical aspects of oral antifertility agents is presented. The various sites in conception and pregnancy at which contraceptive measures may act are described. It becomes apparent that at present the only practical, apparently harmless, and effective method of oral contraception is by means of gonadotropin inhibition and suppression of ovulation in women, with the use of the newer norsteroids for 20 days of the menstrual cycle. With this approach, there is neither toxic effect nor metropathic bleeding. The result of the prolonged suppression of pituitary activity is still to be evaluated; however, in the 5 years of their clinical trial, these compounds have proved harmless and without deleterious effects on subsequent fertility or endocrine function. Although highly effective, the norsteroids are by no means ideal contraceptives because of the incidence of unpleasant effects in about one‐third of the patients, because the cost of therapy is still prohibitive for use in depressed economic areas, and because the patients must be cooperative and intelligent if the medication is to be effective. The control of fertility in men is still in the experimental stage, but the recent studies of MacLeod and Heller on the spermicidal effects of dichloracetyldiamine provide some promise.