Treatment of Secondary Vestibulodynia with Conjugated Estrogen Cream: A Pilot, Double-Blind, Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy of conjugated equine estrogen cream in reducing dyspareunia associated with secondary provoked vestibulodynia.

METHODS: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that included women with secondary provoked vestibulodynia. Participants were randomly allocated to daily application of conjugated equine estrogen cream on the vulvar vestibule (estrogen group) or daily application of a similar placebo cream (placebo group). All patients were evaluated before and after eight weeks of treatment, using a visual analogue scale for superficial dyspareunia (primary outcome), the McGill Pain Questionnaire for superficial dyspareunia, the Female Sexual Function Index for sexual satisfaction, and vulvoscopy for vestibular erythema.

RESULTS: The targeted recruitment for this study was 44 women, but because of funding shortfalls recruitment was limited to 20 women. These 20 participants were randomly assigned to two groups of 10. Improvement of superficial dyspareunia on the visual analogue scale was not significantly different between the two groups (estrogen group: 27% improvement vs. placebo group: 3% improvement, P = 0.29). However, the use of conjugated equine estrogen cream was associated with a significant post-treatment improvement in superficial dyspareunia and in all three secondary outcomes (P < 0.05), whereas this was not the case with the use of placebo.

CONCLUSION: Daily application of conjugated equine estrogen cream to the vulvar vestibule could potentially reduce superficial dyspareunia in women with secondary provoked vestibulodynia, but a randomized trial with adequate statistical power will be required to demonstrate this.