Abstract

PIP: 3 IUD research projects currently under way are announced. First, IFRP is sponsoring a 10-year retrospective study of IUD use in approximately 10,000 women. Data were collected at the Ljubljana Family Planning Institute in Yugoslavia and will be analyzed to determine rates of ectopic pregnancy, cervical dysplasia, and pelvic inflammatory disease. The study is of particular significance because it includes women with multiple IUD insertions, permitting side effects such as bleeding, pain, and infection and events such as expulsion, termination, and pregnancy to be related to this factor. Second, IFRP and the Program for the Introduction and Adaptation of Contraceptive Technology (PIACT) are collaborating on a project to evaluate the use of chemical disinfectants to sterilize copper-bearing IUDs. Such a method would be of particular interest in developing countries. 6 potential solutions-aldehyde, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, choloring-liberating compounds, iodine, and iodine-liberating compounds-were pretested. The latter 2 were rejected because they corrode copper. Although the remaining 4 had some adverse reactions, 1 or more will be further tested under the working conditions that prevail in family planning clinics in developing countries. Third, the IRFP is replicating an earlier study by Dr. Ibrahim Kamal in which a nylon T device was inserted in 98 not so-recently pregnant women. In the current study the nylon-wound T and the TCu-200 are being randomly inserted in 200 women in Puerto Rico and Yugoslavia. This study will help evaluate the hypothesis that the effectiveness of copper IUDs is attributable to the increase in surface area rather than the copper itself.