INTERACTIONS BETWEEN ORAL-CONTRACEPTIVES AND OTHER DRUGS

In modern therapeutics it is not uncommon for a patient to be receiving more than one form of drug treatment. It is estimated that 50 million women are currently prescribed oral contraceptive steroids (Pietrow and Lee, 1974) and many of these at some stage will receive other medication. Because of the low failure rate of contraceptive steroids when taken as prescribed, it has been customary to ascribe contraceptive failure to patient non-compliance. However, there is increasing evidence that certain commonly prescribed drugs can interact with oral contraceptive steroids leading to an impairment of contraceptive efficacy (Robertson and Johnson, 1976; Stockley, 1976). In addition, there is the oroblem of contraceptive steroids influencing the response to other drug therapy. © 1979.