Vaginitis clinical trials

A Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy of Low Dose Vaginal Estrogens in the Treatment of Atrophic Vaginitis

Atrophic vaginitis is a common problem that occurs in up to 40% of postmenopausal women. The main symptoms are dryness, itching and burning in and around the vagina. These symptoms in turn can cause pain with intercourse. Other symptoms can include urinary frequency and urinary urgency. These symptoms are caused by the decreasing levels of estrogens in postmenopausal women. The current treatment options include hormone replacement therapy by mouth and patch and vaginal creams, tablets and rings. The current guideline recommend using hormone therapy at the lowest dose for the shortest time. We are trying to find the lowest effective dose of estrogen cream that helps with symptoms without causing an increase in estrogens in the blood stream. We want to compare two estrogen creams, estradiol and estriol, each at very low doses, with a placebo cream. Estradiol cream is available on prescription but we want to see how effective it is at one tenth the commonly prescribed dose. Estriol cream is not commonly prescribed and is only available at compounding pharmacies. We want to see if either of these estrogens is effective at one tenth the usual dose. We also want to see if these creams are effective when massaged onto the outer part of the vagina, rather than the usual method of treatment, which is inserting them into the vagina.