Contraceptive Implants a

The Population Council developed the first contraceptive implant—Norplant—which was approved in 1983 in Finland, the country of manufacture. Norplant consisted of six rods (2.4 mm x 34 mm), each containing 36 mg of levonorgestrel (a synthetic progestin similar to the natural female hormone progesterone). Production of Norplant was discontinued in 2008 because the new generation of products—the two-rod implants, Jadelle and Sino-implant (II), and 1-rod implants, Implanon and Nexplanon/Implanon NXT —are easier to insert and remove. Jadelle, which was approved by the USFDA in 1996, consists of two rods (2.5 mm x 43 mm), each containing 75 mg of levonorgestrel. In 1996, Sino-implant (II), a similar two-rod implant with the same amount of active ingredient as Jadelle, was introduced in China. This was followed by Implanon, which was first introduced in 1998 and was approved by USFDA in 2006. This single-rod contraceptive implant (2 mm x 40 mm) contains 68 mg etonogestrel (also a progestin).1,2,3,4 A new one-rod implant, Nexplanon, has the same design as Implanon but is also radio-opaque, allowing x-ray detection if the rod is difficult to locate due to deep insertion. Nexplanon also has an improved trocar, the surgical instrument used to insert the rod.5