NEW USE FOR PILL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31363, 8 May 1967, Page 14

NEW USE FOR PILL

Hemophiliacs Helped (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, May 7. A two-year-old boy had been given oral contraceptive pills to stop uncontrollable bleeding, two Turkish doctors reported in the “Lancet,” a British medical weekly. Dr. S. Ozsoylu and Dr. B. Corbacioglu, of the Hacettepe Medical Centre in Ankara, said that they had treated 22 patients aged 25 months to 19 years with contraceptive pills for hemophilia and related blood disorders.

The treatment had shown striking results in most of the patients and the continuous use of oral contraceptives, the doctors suggested, could help hemophiliacs to live a normal life. Hemophilia, which haj afflicted most of the Roya. families of Europe and is sup. posed to have been passed ox by Queen Victoria, is a her* ditary disease suffered only by males. Inherited from the femala side of the family, it leads to an inability on the part of the sufferer’s blood to clot properly when that person is injured. Even a bruise can be fatal. The “Lancet” said that after the treatment, which ranged from two to 11 months, the patients were able to have tooth extractions and minor operations, which are usually hazardous for them, without any loss of blood. For most of the patients it took about six months for the hormones in the pill to take effect. <;■