New European pill works against uterine fibroids

Monday, February 06, 2012

NEW YORK, USA (AP) — New research offers hope for the first pill to treat a common problem in young women: fibroids in the uterus. The growths can cause pain, heavy bleeding and fertility problems, and they are the leading cause of hysterectomies.

In two studies, a lower dose of a "morning after" contraceptive pill stopped the bleeding and shrank the fibroids. It worked as well as shots of a hormone-blocking drug that has unpleasant side effects.

"This is very, very good news. The results are better than we expected," said research leader Dr Jacques Donnez, of Saint-Luc hospital at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels.

He's now testing intermittent long-term use of the pill to see if that could help women avoid surgery.

The pill is called Esmya, and it is awaiting marketing approval in Europe. It's a low-dose version of an emergency birth control pill called ella that came on the market in the United States about a year ago. The new fibroid pill still needs to be tested in the United States and won't be available anytime soon.

Fibroids are benign growths in the uterus that are common in women during their childbearing years, mostly in their late 30s and 40s. They usually go away after menopause. Treating fibroids isn't easy. Removing the uterus is the only cure; other treatments include surgery to remove them or procedures to shrink them with ultrasound or pellets that cut off their blood supply.

With the discovery that the hormone progesterone, as well as oestrogen, promotes fibroid growth, scientists have been looking at a class of drugs that can block progesterone's effect on the uterus.

Donnez and his colleagues in several European countries tested Esmya, made by Swiss-based PregLem. Their findings are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The two studies involved about 550 premenopausal women whose fibroid symptoms were serious enough that surgery was planned.

One study compared two doses of Esmya with a dummy pill for three months. The second tested Esmya against a monthly hormone-blocking shot that shrinks fibroids but causes hot flashes and, with long-term use, can thin bones. Women in that study got a daily Esmya pill and a dummy shot each month, or a hormone shot and a dummy pill.

In both studies, Esmya stopped the bleeding and shrank fibroids in most patients and worked as well as the shot, but with fewer side effects. Menstrual bleeding was controlled in over 90 per cent of the women on Esmya -- many within a week, compared to 19 per cent of those who took a dummy pill.