A broadly used morning-after capsule is much more practical when taken alongside an anti-inflammatory drug, a medical trial has discovered.

Levonorgestrel is among the least expensive and most generally used emergency contraceptives on the earth. However the drug solely works earlier than an egg is launched from one of many ovaries. One examine discovered that the drug is barely 58 per cent efficient at stopping pregnancies when taken 49 to 72 hours after unprotected intercourse.

Anti-inflammatory medicine usually work by inhibiting prostaglandins, chemical compounds with hormone-like results that additionally play a task in lots of processes in replica akin to ovulation and fertilisation. Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson on the Karolinska Institute in Sweden suspected that these medicine may additional cut back the probability of undesirable being pregnant.

To check this, Gemzell-Danielsson and her colleagues performed a randomised trial involving 860 girls who requested emergency contraception inside 72 hours of unprotected intercourse at a household planning clinic in Hong Kong between August 2018 and 2022. The individuals didn’t embody any transgender or non-binary folks.

Half the ladies got levonorgestrel and piroxicam, an anti-inflammatory drug used to deal with arthritis, whereas the opposite half acquired levonorgestrel and a placebo capsule. Neither the individuals nor the healthcare professionals knew which individuals acquired which therapy.

Only one lady turned pregnant within the anti-inflammatory drug group, whereas seven girls turned pregnant within the placebo group. There have been no variations in uncomfortable side effects between the 2 teams.

Primarily based on a mannequin of anticipated being pregnant after unprotected intercourse, 95 per cent of anticipated pregnancies had been prevented within the anti-inflammatory drug group in contrast with simply 63 per cent within the placebo group.

The trial solely included girls who weren’t on any hormonal contraceptives because the researchers wished to check the affect of the remedies on those that had been most liable to an undesirable being pregnant.

Gemzell-Danielsson says it’s unclear precisely how the anti-inflammatory drug helps to cease undesirable pregnancies. “We all know that prostaglandin is necessary for [reproductive] processes, however we have to do extra mechanistic research to know for certain what’s taking place,” she says.

She hopes that the findings have a fast affect on how healthcare professionals worldwide prescribe emergency contraceptives. Piroxicam is reasonable and broadly obtainable, she says, and could be easy to prescribe alongside levonorgestrel.

Combining piroxicam with the opposite broadly used emergency contraceptive, ulipristal, can be more likely to be efficient as that contraceptive works in the same technique to levonorgestrel, says Gemzell-Danielsson, however this hasn’t but been examined.

Judith Stephenson at College Faculty London says the findings may result in main modifications in medical observe, however she hopes different research will affirm the consequence. “Although nicely designed, it’s only one trial, so it will be reassuring to have the findings confirmed in one other examine,” she says.

She additionally says it will be helpful to seek out out if the drug mixture works in individuals who have missed one in all their each day contraceptive tablets.