Two Serotonergic Antidepressants, Novel OC Promising for PMS, PMDD.

CHICAGO -- Research on agents to ease menses-triggered, psychological and physiologic symptoms received considerable attention at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

"Premenstrual symptoms occur in up to 80% of women, but only 5%-10% have severe symptoms that interfere with functioning," said Candace Brown, Pharm.D., of the University of Tennessee, Memphis.

At the same time "there is controversy about the effectiveness of oral contraceptives in treating premenstrual symptoms, because while some women improve while taking OCs, other women's symptoms worsen," she said,

Dr. Brown and her associates studied the effects of a novel oral contraceptive in an open-label study of 258 healthy women.

The women, aged 18-35, used a monophasic oral contraceptive manufactured by Berlex Laboratories Inc. called Yasmin. The OC consists of 30 [micro]g of ethinyl estradiol and 3mg of drospirenone, a novel progestin with antimineralocorticoid activity which causes diuresis, It also acts as a direct antiandrogenic agent.

"We believed that both of these characteristics of drospirenone would help in reducing both emotional and physical symptoms," she said.

At baseline and at 6 months' follow-up, all women completed a 23-item questionnaire assessing the severity of symptoms specific to premenstrual and perimenstrual syndromes, including negative affect, water retention, and impaired concentration.