Women who have fertility problems are 18% more likely to develop cancers such as Endometrial or Ovarian cancer in later-life, according to researchers from Stamford University.
64,345 women who were infertile were compared with more than 3.1million healthy women using an Insurance Database across the 2003 – 2016 period. All had consulted a doctor for gynecological advice. The aim of the study was to assess if women with infertility had a greater risk of cancer.
Over the 4 years of study infertile women had a 2% incidence of cancer compared to 1.7% of the healthy females.
Dr. Michael Eisenberg the senior author of ‘ Risk of cancer in infertile women; analysis of US claims Data,’ made the point that although the increase only seemed small it took place over just the 4 years of the study. A longer-term project might show greater increases Dr.Gayathree Murugappan, a fellow in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Stamford University School of Medicine in California and project leader said that the problem was they did not know the exact reason for the cause. It could be the infertility itself, or the drugs used to treat it, or some common cause.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist and a founder of CANCERactive said, " We have covered fertility, IVF and cancer before on CANCERactive. One study (2) from Australia found that women who had IVF as part of their fertility treatment in their twenties had a slightly higher risk of breast cancer later in life. Another study from Holland (3) found there was no risk.”
References
- https://academic.oup.com/humrep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humrep/dez018/5369986
- https://www.canceractive.com/article/could-breast%20cancer%20be%20linked%20to%20ivf
- https://www.canceractive.com/article/women-who-have-ivf-no-increased-risk-of-breast-cancer