Key clinical point : Use of oral contraceptives by women of reproductive age was not associated with increased risk of heart failure later in life, but the potential impact of different formulations and dosages deserves further research.
Major finding : Over an average of 12 years’ follow-up, the researchers identified 138 incident cases of heart failure. The incidence of heart failure was not significantly associated with heart failure in multivariate analysis (hazard ratio 0.96); however, any OC use was positively associated with left ventricular end-diastolic mass ( P = 0.006) and stroke volume ( P = 0.01 and P = 0.005 for left and right ventricles, respectively).
Study details: The data come from a retrospective study of 3,594 women with an average age of 62 years who were enrolled in the Multi‐Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and could provide data on oral contraceptive use.
Disclosures: The study was supported by the Guangdong Peak Project, the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, and the National Key Research and Development Program of China. The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose.
Source: Luo D et al. ESC Heart Fail. 2021 Apr 9. doi: 10.1002/ehf2.13328.