Premenstrual syndrome in Cape Town. Part II. A double-blind placebo-controlled study of the efficacy of mefenamic acid.

Thirty patients suffering from the premenstrual syndrome were studied for five consecutive menstrual cycles. An untreated baseline cycle without medication was followed by four treatment cycles. Mefenamic acid or placebo was taken on days 11-26 of the cycle in a prospectively randomized double-blind cross-over manner, with each patient acting as her own control. On subjective assessment, there was a significant overall improvement on mefenamic acid compared with placebo. With the exception of gastro-intestinal symptoms, mefenamic acid was not significantly better than placebo for any of the individual symptoms assessed on the patients daily symptom checklists.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes