OCULAR COMPLICATIONS IN WOMEN USING ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES

Dr .Anupama Tandon; Dr .Richa Agarwal; Dr .Sumita Sethi; Dr .Ruchi Dabas; Dr .Sunil Verma; Dr .Puneet Dhingra

Volume : VI, Issue : VIII, August - 2017

OCULAR COMPLICATIONS IN WOMEN USING ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES

Dr . Anupama Tandon, Dr . Richa Agarwal, Dr . Sumita Sethi, Dr . Ruchi Dabas, Dr . Sunil Verma, Dr . Puneet Dhingra

Abstract :

Aims and Objectives: To find out the incidence and ocular manifestations in women taking oral contraceptives along with time taken for the ocular symptoms to recover after stopping the oral contraceptives.

Methods: This study was conducted at BPS GMC Khanpur Kalan Sonepat Haryana in joint collaboration of Ophthalmology and Gynaecology departments with due ethical clearance, no conflict of interest and with proper consent of all study subjects .This was a case control study of 8 months duration in which two groups each of 500 sample size were taken. Group A included women using oral contraceptives for continuous duration one year and group B, in which women had not consumed oral contraceptives at all.

Result: We have taken only ocular side effects of subjects of both the groups and ruled out the social status as we have mostly rural and grade 3 city populations. The parity with all was not common, but mostly was multiparous. There is slight increase in conjunctivitis (3.4%) in OC users than (2.2%) in non users. In case of corneal edema a clear relation between O.C. users (4.6%) and non users (2.6%) was found. Contact lens intolerance was also 6 times more in O.C. users (5.2%) and (0.6%) in non users. There was more than 2 times increase in glaucoma in users (3.8%) and (1.4%) in non users. There was slight increase in prevalence of lacrimal disease (8.4%) in users than (6.2%) in non users. Same result was with retinal vascular disorder 3 times more (0.6%) in users as compared to (0.2%) in non users. No clear relation was established between cataract and oral contraceptive use. Other ophthalmic complications of Oral Contraceptives have been reported like acute maculoneuropathy, macular hemorrhage, CRVO, CRAO and perivasculitis have been reported (¹).

Conclusion: A statistical significant relationship was established between conjunctivitis due to corneal edema and contact lens intolerance, glaucoma, lacrimal disease (Dry eye) and retinal vascular disorders between O.C. users and non users.

Large number of case reports may represent a low overall incidence or may be normal findings in the population as a whole or may be caused by other systemic factors (²).