Dunedin Tests Of Fertility Drug

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30855, 14 September 1965, Page 1

Dunedin Tests Of Fertility Drug

CX'eto Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, September 13.

Preliminary tests will begin in Dunedin soon to find patients suitable to undergo trials of the new fertility drug clomiphene.

About 10 women would be admitted to hospital within the next fortnight to undergo certain investigations, an official of the gynaecology and obstetrics departments of the Otago Medical School said tonight.

Tests held over two or three days would be required to select suitable patients, and could be done more easily by keeping them together, he said.

The tests would find which of the women were not ovulating. Probably only a few of the women would be suitable for clomiphene administration The new drug, which was an inducer of ovulation, had certain side effects—not of a serious nature but which required that the patient was physically fit If suitable patients were

found, clinical trials using the drug would begin almost immediately. Dunedin would be the major centre for the trials.

There was little danger of the drug inducing multiple births as was the case with human pituitary gonadatrophin.

A “very close medical scrutiny” would be kept on any women who underwent the trials, the official said. Fairly firm bases for the amount of dosage had been determined by Dr. Robert Kistner, of Boston, and Dr G. L M. Swyer, of London, who had undertaken trials with the drug.