New approaches to female fertility regulation — an overview

Abstract

It has been estimated that in the next 20 years the number of couples in the reproductive age groups in developing countries alone will have grown to nearly 1 billion. The demand for fertility control will necessarily increase and the bulk of current research is aimed at making the currently available methods safer and more acceptable. It is generally believed that no completely new method of fertility regulation will emerge in the next 20 years or so due to restraints placed by drug regulatory agencies and the prohibitive costs of testing a new drug. Given the world-wide recession the trend has been for a declining investment in financial support for research and development of new contraceptive technology1,2. Sterilization, steroidal contraceptives and IUCDs are all very effective. The crucial issues in the near future will therefore be aimed at optimizing the use of currently available methods and improving their safety, and, to a lesser extent, efficacy with minor alterations in composition or delivery systems. Nevertheless there is still hope for a novel breakthrough in contraception from the work which is being done at present by independent researchers. Perhaps these may bear fruition in the twenty-first century. This chapter will review briefly these novel investigations but will stress mainly the work presently under way on improving methods of fertility control.