Effects of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, the copper IUD and the levonorgestrel implant on testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin and free testosterone levels: ancillary study of the ECHO randomized clinical trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Copper (Supplement) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02550067 15/09/2015.

Contraception, or family planning, is central to the role of women in societies.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults and adults, women only.

Participants were allocated by centrally-managed randomization to open label depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA-IM), copper intrauterine device (IUD) or levonorgestrel implant.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, open-label and multicenter study.

Because people in this Copper (Supplement) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Being open-label, the Copper (Supplement) study did not mask who received what.

Running at several centres spread the Copper (Supplement) study over different clinics and patient groups.

In this ancillary study at the East London, South Africa site of the ECHO multicentre randomized trial, the researchers compared effects of three contraceptive methods on serum androgen levels among contraceptive users aged 18 to 35 years.

The primary outcome was free testosterone at 6 months.

What Was Measured

These hormones have direct effects on the users, as well as modifying the levels of the users' own circulating sex hormones, both the 'female' and the 'male' sex hormones (androgens).

This finding is relevant to the effects experienced by users of these methods, because free testosterone has effects on sexual function, bone health and mood, as well as on conditions such as acne and hair distribution patterns.

The subject headings attached to it are Acne Vulgaris, Androgens, Contraceptive Agents, Female, Intrauterine Devices, Copper, Levonorgestrel, Medroxyprogesterone Acetate and Progestins.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Contraception, Copper intrauterine device, Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, Free testosterone, Levonorgestrel implant and Randomized trial.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and multicenter study of Copper (Supplement).

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2024 (BMC women's health), a journal based in England.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.