Description
This regimen allows a woman who has had unprotected sex to avoid pregnancy by taking 12 hours apart two sufficient doses of estrogen and progestogen hormones. The sooner this is started, the more effective it is and the effectiveness more than 72 hours after sexual intercourse is greatly reduced.
These hormones are administered as a number of combined oral contraceptive pills (COCPs). Each dose can vary from 2 to 5 pills depending on the brand of medication being used. Patients concurrently taking certain regular medications (e.g. rifamycin and many anticonvulsant drugs) that enhance the liver's break down of other drugs, must use an even higher hormone dose and may be better advised to use as an alternative the insertion of an IUD.
The standard regime is two tablets each with 50 µg ethinyl estradiol and 250 µg levonorgestrel, to be repeated 12 hours later.
The method is not guaranteed to prevent pregnancy and whilst the hormones may make the subsequent period come a few days early or late, a pregnancy test should be carried out if the period is more than 3 days late. The Yuzpe Regimen does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases.
Subsequently, the World Health Organization (WHO) undertook an investigation into the use of progestogen-only tablets as an Emergency Hormonal Contraceptive (i.e. without any estrogen component). This showed greater efficacy with reduced side effects and has therefore superseded the Yuzpe method. A single dose of 100 mg mifepristone is also more effective than the Yuzpe regime.
Read more about this topic: Yuzpe Regimen
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