Cardiovascular venous thromboembolism, oral

The cardiovascular complications of oral contraceptives include venous thrombosis and thromboembolism, arterial damage, and hypertension. 

World Health Organization Collaborative Study of Cardiovascular Disease and Steroid Hormone Contraception. Effect of different progestagens in low oestrogen oral contraceptives on venous thromboembolic disease. Lancet 1995 346(8990) 1582-8. 

Jick H, Jick SS, Gurewich V, Myers MW, Vasilakis C. Risk of idiopathic cardiovascular death and nonfatal venous thromboembolism in women using oral contraceptives with differing progestagen components. Lancet 1995 346(8990) 1589-93. 

Stroke is a very uncommon event in childbearing women, occurring in approximately 11 per 100,000 women over a 1-year period of time. Therefore, even a doubling of this risk with oral contraceptive pills would have minimal effect on attributable risk. The estimated risk of myocardial infarction associated with oral contraceptive pill use in nonsmokers is 3 per million women over 1 year. The estimated risk of venous thromboembolism attributable to oral contraceptive pills is less than 3 per 10,000 women per year. However, the risk may be increased in women who smoke or have other predisposing factors to thrombosis or thromboembolism. In fact, it should be emphasized that the risk of serious cardiovascular side effects is particularly marked in women over 35 years of age who are heavy smokers (e.g., more than 15 cigarettes per day). Additionally, the literature suggests that there may be an increased risk of breast cancer associated with long-term oral contraceptive pill use in women under the age of 35. However, because the incidence of breast cancer is so relatively low in this population, the attributable risk of breast cancer from birth control pill use is small. 

Postmenopausal hormone treatment with oral combined estrogen plus progestogen has no benefit for cardiovascular disease prevention and increases the risk of breast cancer, coronary heart disease events, stroke, and venous thromboembolic events. However, it reduced the rates of hip fracture and colorectal cancer. 

Cardiovascular The main adverse effect of prothrombin complex concentrates is a risk of thrombosis, as patients taking oral anticoagulants have prothrombotic susceptibility factors [31, 33 ]. Reported thromboembolic complications include ischemic stroke, venous thromboembolism (venous thrombosis or pulmonary embolism), myocardial infarction, and disseminated intravascular coagulation [32 ]. 

Cardiovascular The evidence on the relative risk of venous thromboembolic events during oral or transdermal administration of estrogens in postmenopausal women has been reviewed [2 ]. Five major studies... 

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