Newer oral contraceptives and the risk of venous thromboembolism

Research on the relationship between venous thromboembolism and the progestagen content of combined oral contraceptives has pointed to an increase in risk associated with products containing desogestrel and gestodene. Although many biases must have been at play in these nonexperimental studies, the errors that have been suggested and examined are not of a sufficient magnitude to account for the observed results. The most plausible explanation of the available data is that combined oral contraceptives containing desogestrel and gestodene carry a very small risk of venous thromboembolism, which exceeds the even smaller risk carried by products containing levonorgestrel. The position of norgestimate is uncertain.