By MARTIN JOHNSTON
New Zealand is the only country so far to warn women of the higher blood-clot risks found with Diane and Estelle contraceptive pills.
A British study found last year that these pills increase users' risks of forming a clot by at least eight times, compared with women not taking any oral contraceptives.
The Ministry of Health on Thursday advised women taking Diane or Estelle to see their doctor or nurse before starting a new pack. In the meantime, they should keep taking their pills.
Family Planning Association chief executive Gill Greer said its clinics had received only a handful of calls yesterday from women worried by the new advice.
A ministry spokesman, Dr Stewart Jessamine, said New Zealand was the first to take public action over the British study because its use of pills containing cyproterone acetate, such as Diane and Estelle, was so high.
About 25,000 women in New Zealand take them, comprising 10 to 12 per cent of the oral contraceptive market.
They were rarely used in the United States, Dr Jessamine said. British and European health agencies were still considering whether to act.
But the maker of Diane pills, Schering, criticised the ministry's action and said the British study suffered major weaknesses.
The ministry says the overall risks are small.
Of those who develop a clot, about 3 per cent die.
Among women aged 15 to 44 taking no oral contraceptives, five to 10 in every 100,000 develop a clot each year.
The risks are increased three- to four-fold by using second-generation pills such as Brevinor; six to eight-fold with third-generation pills such as Femodene; and possibly over eight-fold with Diane and Estelle.
They are meant to be used as a contraceptive only by women with acne, baldness, excessive hair growth and polycystic ovary syndrome.
Women who are extremely obese, have had a blood clot, or are genetically predisposed to clots, should not be prescribed any of the contraceptives that increase blood-clot risk.
But those at lower levels of risk - because of immobility, being overweight, having cancer, certain blood disorders or bad varicose veins - are advised to consider these factors against the benefits of the drug.
A National Women's Hospital gynaecologist, Associate Professor Cindy Farquhar, said Diane and Estelle were better than the alternative treatment for the ovarian syndrome.
NZ lone voice on clot risk
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