Combined hormonal contraceptives for heavy menstrual bleeding.

Menorrhagia or heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is an excessive blood loss that impairs a woman's quality of life, either physical, emotional, social or material. It is benign and not associated with pregnancy or any other gynaecological or systemic disease. Medical treatments used to reduce excessive menstrual blood loss (MBL) include prostaglandin synthetase inhibitors, antifibrinolytics, oral contraceptive pills, and other hormones. The combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP) is claimed to have a variety of beneficial effects, inducing a regular shedding of a thinner endometrium and inhibiting ovulation, thus having the effect of both treating HMB and providing contraception. More recently, a contraceptive vaginal ring (CVR) has been trialled to investigate whether this treatment can provide similar benefits to COCP while lessening hormonal systemic exposure. This review is an update of a review which originally focused on COCP alone. The scope of the review has been widened to consider other types of delivery of combined hormonal contraceptives for reduction of MBL.