I enjoyed reading the two articles written by Sam Rowlands in the October 2010 issue of the Journal.1 2 They were comprehensive and gave valuable information to health care professionals providing a contraceptive subdermal implant service. There are, however, several points that require clarification and/or correction.

First, Norplant®, the six-rod system, was manufactured by Leiras Oy, now Bayer Healthcare and distributed in the UK by Hoechst Marion Roussel, who felt that Norplant was no longer commercially viable following the launch of the single-rod implant, Implanon® in 1999.

Second, Norplant and Implanon had similar but not the same insertion site as stated in these articles.1 2 The 1993 data sheet for Norplant says that “the capsules should be inserted in the inner aspect of the upper non-dominant arm approximately 6–8 cm above the fold in the elbow”. As there were six capsules they could not be placed in the groove between biceps and triceps as stated by Rowlands …