Evaluation of liver function and lipid metabolism following norplant implant removal

A final evaluation of this longitudinal study involving 100 Singaporean women shows that, besides a significantly elevated bilirubin level, there is no other evidence of hepatocellular dysfunction with the use of Norplant implants. The elevated bilirubin levels remained significantly elevated six months after removal of the implant. Despite this, all values of bilirubin remained within the clinical range for the population studies. As regards lipid metabolism, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and total triglycerides continued to remain below the pre-insertion mean at six months post-removal. The HDL-cholesterol showed a significant increase following removal of the implants. As a result, the HDL-cholesterol/(total cholesterol-HDL-cholesterol) ratio continued to remain above 0.200. This indicates that Norplant implants are not directly contributory to cardiovascular risk.