Oral Contraceptives and Nonfatal Vascular Disease—Recent Experience

Abstract

A follow-up study of more than 40,000 healthy women aged 20 to 44 years was done to assess the development of thromboembolism, stroke, or myocardial infarction requiring hospitalization from 1977 through 1979 at the Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. A positive association existed between current oral contraceptive use and venous thromboembolism (risk ratio = 8.3), but not between current oral contraceptive use and stroke. There were no admissions among these healthy young women for acute myocardial infarction.