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Does isotretinoin affects contraception hormonal pills - Ethinylestradiolum, Drospirenonum? Asking as a pharmacologist not a patient.

Yoda
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My professional knowledge of vitamin A derivatives is limited to preparative aspects and some photochemical properties.

But it seems that the German Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte (BfArM) provides some information in german and english.

I didn't know whether a link to the search would survive the session, so the link above is just to their website and you would need to search yourself in case you're interested.

Note: I had a look at the Fachinformationen (RTF in German) among the documents "linked".

In this publication, it is very explicitly pointed out that Isotretinoin is a TERATOGEN and efficient contraception therefore is absolutely vital (in the truest sense of the word).

It is suggested that patients use two independent methods of contraception, of which one should be a "barrier method", e.g. the use of condoms.

Klaus-Dieter Warzecha
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    In the link you provided I have found: http://www.bfarm.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/Drugs/vigilance/PSURs/csp/g-j/isotretinoin.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

    There is no mentioning of interaction between hormonal contraception and isotretinoin.

    I found(link at the BOTTOM) "Isotretinoin may reduce the efficacy of these medicines in some women, and they are not 100% reliable. Subcutaneous hormone implants or Mirena® may also be considered." but this is very inexact http://www.dermnetnz.org/treatments/isotretinoin.html

     – Yoda Jan 28 '14 at 17:51
  • Could you have a look on that: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15116059 – Yoda Jan 28 '14 at 19:55
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    Please note that I'm not a pharmacologist, I only did some therapeutic drug monitoring in the last millenium. Results and conclusion sound to me like "[...] actually, our data are a bit shaky and we can't really prove a correlation", but better safe than sorry. The "Fachinformationen" (maybe you can run it through a translator) comes to similar conclusions: We're not certain if there's a pharmacological interaction, but if something goes wrong, the sh*t certainly hits the fan. – Klaus-Dieter Warzecha Jan 28 '14 at 20:10