Patient acceptability of and tolerance to a placebo intravaginal ring in hysterectomized women: a pilot study.

Objective: To assess the tolerance to and patient acceptability of a placebo intravaginal ring in hysterectomized, postmenopausal women over a 28-day period.
Design: Open, single-center.
Setting: University hospital specialist menopause clinic.
Participants: A total of 24 healthy postmenopausal women attending menopause clinics at King's College Hospital and the Amarant Centre, London.
Main Outcome Measures: Discomfort, ring expulsions, bowel, urinary and sexual difficulties associated with the ring and women's overall views on this method.
Results: The major problems with use of the intravaginal ring were patient discomfort, involuntary ring expulsion and sexual partner discomfort. These were experienced by 13, 11 and seven women and their partners, respectively, and resulted in premature discontinuation by three women who suffered discomfort and two women who experienced recurrent involuntary ring expulsion.
Conclusions: Two-thirds of the patients found the intravaginal ring acceptable, one-third did not.