Pill ‘does not increase cancer risk’

Press, 12 August 1989, Page 28

Pill ‘does not increase cancer risk’

NZPA-AAP Sydney Women with a family history of breast cancer do not increase their risk by taking the contraceptive pill, according to an American study of over 9000 women. The study, reported in the latest U.S. “Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology,” concluded that women who have a close family member with breast cancer are safe to take the Pill. Neither the total length of contraceptive use nor length of use before the first pregnancy bore any relationship to the breast cancer risk of the women, who were aged 20 to 54. “We also found no latency effect whereby prolonged use (at least four years) in total or before first term pregnancy, might increase risk after an interval of many years,” the researchers reported. Their work follows other recent research suggesting long-term contra-

ceptive use from an early age increases women’s risk of developing breast cancer before menopause. But the latest study is claimed to be the first detailed investigation of the link between the Pill and breast cancer in women already at increased risk because of their family history. It was conducted by researchers from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, and the Food and Drug Administration in Maryland, and based on data from the Centre for Disease Control and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The comparison of 4730 women with breast cancer and 4646 without it found no evidence that even long-term contraceptive use increased the risk of women whose mother, sister or daughter had had the disease. Although some women with a second degree familv history — a erand-

mother or aunt with breast cancer — appeared to face a greater risk from contraceptive use, this was probably a chance variation, the researchers said. Advisers to the F.D.A. concluded earlier this year that contraceptive pills, which appear to reduce the risk of cancer of the uterus and ovaries, did not cause breast cancer. But Swedish researchers subsequently reported that women who took the Pill while teenagers in the 1960 s faced about five times the usual risk of developing the cancer before menopause. A recent British study found women taking the Pill for four years or more faced an increased risk up to the age of 36. At present, women with breast cancer, oestrogendependent neoplasias (abnormal growths) and undiagnosed abnormal genital bleeding are, advised not to take the Pill