Progestagens in high-risk pregnancy. What we know today

Abstract

Miscarriage remains an important global problem: 23 million miscarriages are registered annually in the world, i.e. 44 pregnancy losses every minute, and the total risk of miscarriage is 15.3% of all pregnancies. Effective methods of pregnancy preservation (in case of idiopathic miscarriage and threatened miscarriage) include lifestyle modification and progestagen therapy. Progesterone is the main hormone necessary to maintain pregnancy. The effectiveness of progestogens among medical methods that increase the chances of pregnancy preservation has been proven by numerous studies. Effectiveness and safety of various types of progestogens during pregnancy have been studied. As a result, progesterone and dydrogesterone became the only progestogens approved for use in obstetrics – micronized progesterone and dydrogesterone reduce the frequency of miscarriage in women with clinical diagnoses of threatened miscarriage and idiopathic recurrent miscarriage. In addition, the progestogens safety has been carefully studied in modern randomized studies, prospective trials and meta-analyses and the same safety profile of dydrogesterone and micronized progesterone for pregnant women and the fetus has been proven. Studies have shown that oral dydrogesterone has relatively low antagonistic activity at glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors compared to progesterone and therefore well tolerated. Oral dydrogesterone due to the peculiarities of structure has improved bioavailability compared to progesterone, which allows a woman to avoid the inconvenience and discomfort associated with the intravaginal or intramuscular use of progesterone. In addition, dydrogesterone has a 1.5 times higher affinity for progesterone receptors compared to micronized progesterone and a pronounced anti-inflammatory and immunomodulation effect, which provides certain clinical advantages for patients after recurrent pregnancy losses. Thus, progestogens are indicated for all patients with recurrent pregnancy losses from the moment of receiving a positive pregnancy test, as they reduce the risk of miscarriage. It is important that the use of progestagen drugs during the first and second trimester of pregnancy is not associated with side effects

Keywords

• miscarriages
• progestogens
• progesterone
• dydrogesterone