Women taking contraceptive pills have a 50 per cent higher overall risk of developing breast cancer, a study has found.
Some pills with high levels of oestrogen can raise the risk threefold, compared with that of women who have never taken the Pill or who have stopped using it, US scientists found.
Pills containing low-dose hormones carried no extra risk.
Women taking contraceptive pills have a 50 per cent higher overall risk of developing breast cancer, a study has found
Dr Elisabeth Beaber of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, which carried out the study, said the results suggested use of contemporary oral contraceptives in the past year was associated with an increased breast cancer risk ‘relative to never or former oral contraceptive use.
This risk may vary by oral contraceptive formulation’.
She added: ‘Our results require confirmation and should be interpreted cautiously.’
Previous studies have suggested the increased risk declined after users stopped taking the pills, she added. Around three million women in the UK take contraceptive pills.
The study – published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research – involved 23,000 women and claims to be the first to look at up-to-date formulations of oral contraceptives used in the 1990s and 2000s.
Some pills with high levels of oestrogen can raise the risk of developing breast cancer threefold, compared with that of women who have never taken the Pill or who have stopped using it, US scientists found.
It compared 1,102 in whom breast cancer had been diagnosed and 21,952 without the disease. Those with breast cancer were aged 20 to 49 years, with cancer having been diagnosed between 1990 and 2009.
Pills containing high-dose oestrogen increased breast cancer risk 2.7-fold, or 170 per cent, while those with moderate-dose oestrogen increased the risk 1.6-fold.
Pills containing low-dose oestrogen did not increase breast cancer risk.
Across recent use of all pills, breast cancer risk increased by 50 per cent, compared with never or former use.
Dr Caroline Dalton, of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: ‘Data from this study is welcome, in that it tells us more about the differences between high and low-dose options.
‘Levels of oestrogen in the combined pill have decreased over the past 30 years.’
Sarah Williams at Cancer Research UK said women should not stop taking the Pill on the basis of this study and discuss any concern with their GP or family planning service.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2712746/Taking-Pill-raises-risk-breast-cancer-50-cent-says-study.html#ixzz39A3A6k2I
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