A controlled clinical trial comparing potent progestins, LNG‐IUS and dienogest, for the treatment of women with adenomyosis

Ikuko Ota, Fuminori Taniguchi, Yoshiaki Ota, Hiroki Nagata, Ikumi Wada, Takaya Nakaso, Ai Ikebuchi, Eri Sato, Yukihiro Azuma, Tasuku Harada
Reproductive medicine and biology · 2021 · vol. 20(4) , pp. 427–434 · doi:10.1002/rmb2.12408 · PMID:34646070 · W3198712303
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 15 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This trial found that both LNG-IUS and dienogest reduced adenomyosis pain, with dienogest showing greater initial efficacy and significantly reducing bleeding days over six years.

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

Abstract

PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy of two progestins, levonorgestrel intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) and dienogest (DNG), for adenomyosis. METHODS: = 81) groups as a controlled clinical trial for 72 months. Participants were classified by three different localizations of adenomyosis: diffuse, focal, and extrinsic. VAS (Visual analog scale) score, days, and amount of uterine bleeding were assessed. Uterine volume or bone mineral density (BMD) were measured by three-dimensional ultrasonography or dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. RESULTS: LNG-IUS and DNG comparably reduced pain scores in patients with adenomyosis. With regard to pain control, DNG offered greater efficacy than LNG-IUS in 3 months of treatment. In all types of adenomyosis, the days of bleeding after 12 months with DNG were significantly decreased compared to those with LNG-IUS. The decrease of whole uterine body was transient in any subtypes. A comparable decrease in BMD due to age-related changes in both groups was observed. CONCLUSIONS: LNG-IUS and DNG could be useful for long-term management of adenomyosis. In terms of durations of uterine bleeding, DNG was superior to LNG-IUS for 6 years.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Outcome instruments

VAS-pain

Condition tags

adenomyosis

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 (17)

Cited by (15)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-04T01:30:01.192114+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:24:14.728497+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK