Does Fertility Treatment Increase Risk of Ovarian Cancer?
Posted: Friday, August 31, 2018
The results of a large, long-term study published in BMJ indicate that some women who underwent fertility treatments experienced, years later, a higher-than-expected incidence of ovarian tumors. However, “increased risks of ovarian tumours were limited to women with endometriosis, low parity, or both,” noted Alastair G. Sutcliffe, MD, PhD, of the University College London, UK, and colleagues. “This study found no increased risk of any ovarian tumour in women treated because of only male factor or unexplained infertility.”
The cohort of the population-based, data linkage cohort study included 255,786 women who were recorded by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority as having had assisted reproduction in the UK. They represented 2,257,789 person-years (mean, 8.8 years/woman) of follow-up.
Statistically, the absolute excess risk of ovarian cancer overall was 5.0 cases per 100,000 person-years; for invasive and borderline forms, the absolute excess risk was 3.4 cases and 1.7 cases per 100,000 person years, respectively. The increased ovarian cancer risk might not be due to “assisted reproduction itself…[but] both surveillance bias and the effect of treatment are also possibilities,” the team wrote, adding that “ongoing monitoring of this population is essential.”
Possible links to other malignancies were studied as well. No increased risk of invasive breast cancer or breast cancer overall was found, nor was an increased risk of corpus uteri malignancies. However, the women had a slightly increased risk of in situ breast cancer, with the risk elevation associated with an increasing number of treatment cycles (P = .03).
