Subcutaneous Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate versus Leuprolide Acetate in the Treatment of Endometriosis-Associated Pain

P.G. Crosignani, Anthony A. Luciano, Amrit Ray, Agneta Bergqvist
In: Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey · 2006 · vol. 61(5) , pp. 321–322 · doi:10.1097/01.ogx.0000216525.26292.36 · W2043071377
article OA: green CC0 ⤵ 7 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy Full text JSON View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-07-02 ⓘ

Subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and leuprolide acetate similarly reduced endometriosis-associated pain and improved quality of life, with DMPA-SC showing better bone mineral density retention and fewer hot flashes.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-08-20 · read from full text ⓘ

This randomized controlled trial compared the efficacy and safety of subcutaneous depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA-SC 104) against leuprolide in treating pain associated with endometriosis among 299 women. Both treatments effectively reduced dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and pelvic pain while improving quality of life and productivity over a 12-month period, with DMPA-SC 104 demonstrating fewer hot flushes and amenorrhea. However, patients receiving leuprolide experienced significant and sustained declines in bone mineral density at the hip and spine, whereas those on DMPA-SC 104 showed recovery of bone density by the study's end. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — specifically comparing two medical therapies for managing endometriosis-associated pain.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

This study compared the effectiveness and safety of a new subcutaneous formulation of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate delivering 104 mg per 0.65 mL (DMPA-SC 104) every 3 months with those of leuprolide—a widely used and effective treatment for pain from endometriosis—in a dose of 3.75 mg per month (or 11.25 mg every 3 months). Bone mineral density (BMD) was estimated after 6 months of treatment and again at a 12-month follow-up assessment. Clinical end points included dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, pelvic pain and tenderness, and induration. In addition, productivity was monitored at 6 and 18 months. Both treatments began in the first 5 days of a normal menstrual cycle. Participants were 299 women with laparoscopically diagnosed endometriosis; 153 were randomized to receive DMPA-SC 104, and 146 leuprolide. Between two thirds and three fourths of patients in both groups completed 12 months of follow up. The 2 treatment groups were initially similar in nearly all respects. All signs and symptoms of endometriosis were lessened as effectively by treatment with DMPA-SC 104 as with leuprolide. More than three fourths of patients in each treatment group maintained improvement at 12 months. Patients reported a higher quality of life with either treatment, and those in both treatment groups were satisfied with their results. Productivity also improved significantly in both groups. Patients taking leuprolide had significant reductions from baseline BMD in the total hip and lumbar spine regions after 6 months of treatment. A similar change occurred, in the spine only, in patients given DMPA-SC 104. At 12 months, BMD values were normal at both sites in the latter group, whereas women treated with leuprolide continued to have declining values at both sites. Hot flushes were less frequent in the DMPA-SC 104 group as was amenorrhea. Serious adverse events occurred in 4% of the DMPA-SC 104 group and 2% of patients given leuprolide. The most common side effect during follow-up was breast pain, which was slightly more frequent in the DMPA-SC 104 group. There were no clinically important changes in hematologic values, biochemical assays, or urinalysis. Although further long-term trials will be needed, the present findings suggest that DMPA-SC 104 may be suitable as a first-line treatment for women having pain caused by endometriosis. (Several investigators, including my colleagues and I
Full text 2,583 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · click to expand
Subcutaneous Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate versus Leuprolide Acetate in the Treatment of Endometriosis-Associated Pain - P G. Crosignani - A Luciano - A Ray - A Bergqvist This study compared the effectiveness and safety of a new subcutaneous formulation of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate delivering 104 mg per 0.65 mL (DMPA-SC 104) every 3 months with those of leuprolide—a widely used and effective treatment for pain from endometriosis—in a dose of 3.75 mg per month (or 11.25 mg every 3 months). Bone mineral density (BMD) was estimated after 6 months of treatment and again at a 12-month follow-up assessment. Clinical end points included dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, pelvic pain and tenderness, and induration. In addition, productivity was monitored at 6 and 18 months. Both treatments began in the first 5 days of a normal menstrual cycle. Participants were 299 women with laparoscopically diagnosed endometriosis; 153 were randomized to receive DMPA-SC 104, and 146 leuprolide. Between two thirds and three fourths of patients in both groups completed 12 months of follow up. The 2 treatment groups were initially similar in nearly all respects. All signs and symptoms of endometriosis were lessened as effectively by treatment with DMPA-SC 104 as with leuprolide. More than three fourths of patients in each treatment group maintained improvement at 12 months. Patients reported a higher quality of life with either treatment, and those in both treatment groups were satisfied with their results. Productivity also improved significantly in both groups. Patients taking leuprolide had significant reductions from baseline BMD in the total hip and lumbar spine regions after 6 months of treatment. A similar change occurred, in the spine only, in patients given DMPA-SC 104. At 12 months, BMD values were normal at both sites in the latter group, whereas women treated with leuprolide continued to have declining values at both sites. Hot flushes were less frequent in the DMPA-SC 104 group as was amenorrhea. Serious adverse events occurred in 4% of the DMPA-SC 104 group and 2% of patients given leuprolide. The most common side effect during follow-up was breast pain, which was slightly more frequent in the DMPA-SC 104 group. There were no clinically important changes in hematologic values, biochemical assays, or urinalysis. Although further long-term trials will be needed, the present findings suggest that DMPA-SC 104 may be suitable as a first-line treatment for women having pain caused by endometriosis. (Several investigators, including my colleagues and I

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-doi-fallback ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Condition tags

endometriosisdysmenorrheadyspareunia

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (39)

Cited by (7)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK