Clinical Features, Laboratory Characteristics and Outcome from Oral Contraceptives-induced Liver Injury in 43 Consecutive Patients and a Brief Review of Published Reports

Abstract

Hormonal oral contraceptive (OC) agents such as estrogen or progesterone, either as single agents or in combination, and a non-hormonal drug like ormeloxifene are used for various conditions. However, estrogen and progesterone-containing OC as well as ormeloxifene are seldom associated with hepatotoxicity. We prospectively studied the clinical, demographic, liver injury pattern, complications, and outcome of the hepatotoxicity from OC and ormeloxifene. We analyzed and compared the aforementioned characteristics among consecutive patients with OC and ormeloxifene-induced drug-induced liver injury (DILI) from two university hospitals in India. Cases fulfilling established DILI criteria and the Roussel Uclaf causality assessment method were identified and followed up until recovery/death. We identified 43 (3.5%) amongst 1226 patients with DILI; 19 (44%) from estrogen and progesterone combination, 21 (49%) from progesterone monotherapy, and 3 (7%) due to ormeloxifene. Seven cases were identified from 1998 to 2014 and 36 cases from 2015 to 2023. All were due to oral tablets. The mean age was 36 years (range 21-75). Nineteen patients (44%) developed jaundice and 5 (11.6%) developed itching. The liver injury pattern was hepatocellular in 19 (44%), mixed in 13 (30%), and cholestatic in 11 (26%). Four patients (9%) died, three from acute liver failure and one due to acute on chronic liver failure. Liver biochemical tests normalized after a mean of 66 days after stopping the implicated agents. Contrastingly, literature search yielded 24 cases of progesterone DILI reported between 1962 and 2019 with no mortality. In contrast to published literature on oral contraceptives, a majority of oral contraceptive-induced DILI in our series were from progesterone monotherapy and a smaller number with ormeloxifene, that often resulted in clinically significant jaundice or liver test abnormalities and rarely in fatality.