IVF fears over breast cancer
THE death in 2003 of Paul Merton’s wife Sarah Parkinson once again brought IVF treatment into the spotlight — for all the wrong reasons. Learning she had breast cancer after finishing fertility treatment, Sarah, 41, was convinced it was triggered by the IVF treatment. So what is the truth? Here, JUSTINE PICARDIE, whose sister Ruth conceived twins through IVF and later died of breast cancer, gave her very personal reasons for suspecting there may be a darker side to fertility treatment . . .
September 30, 2003
LAST week, I was interviewed on the radio about an anthology of short stories to which I’d contributed — A Day In The Life, which is being sold in aid of Breast Cancer Care — and the presenter asked me a difficult question. ‘Do we really need to know anything else about breast cancer?’
I gave the usual grim statistics: that one in nine women in this country develops breast cancer; that it’s the most common form of female cancer; that over 3,600 women are diagnosed every year, and the incidence is rising.
But afterwards I realised that what I should have said is we still don’t know very much about breast cancer at all.
I was still thinking about this several hours after the interview when I was told that Sarah Parkinson — who’d also contributed a story — had just died of breast cancer at the age of 41, someone who’d eaten sensibly, done yoga, and was irrepressibly happy.
And just like Sarah, my sister Ruth — who died of it at 33 — seemed equally glowing with vitality. What, then, had made them so unfortunate? Was it just bad luck? Or was it that Ruth and Sarah had both undergone IVF?
Sarah, certainly, had no doubt that the fertility treatment had been a factor in her development of the disease. She’d felt a swelling in her breast before she commenced IVF two years ago. But after a mammogram and ultrasound, Sarah had been told not to worry about it.
Yet her cancer was diagnosed just a few months later, in February 2002, and it was sufficiently advanced — and aggressive — to have spread to her lymph nodes.
Similarly, one of the first questions my sister had asked when her cancer was diagnosed was: ‘Could it have been caused by the IVF?’ (Her longed-for and much-loved twins were conceived after one cycle of IVF, a year before her diagnosis.) Her doctors gave her varying answers: from no, to maybe (but the maybe was always strictly off the record).
Yet as both Ruth and Sarah pointed out, given that the Pill and HRT have been associated with breast cancer, then why not IVF?
All of them involve doses of female hormones, and while we don’t yet know the exact effect that they have on breast cancer, we do know they can be linked, in myriad ways.
After Ruth’s death, I helped to set up the Lavender Trust, which provides support and services for younger women with breast cancer. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard anecdotal evidence about a link between IVF and cancer.
Of course, not all women who have IVF get breast cancer, and I’d hate to create unnecessary alarm. Certainly, there is no conclusive medical research. I’m aware, too, that the rage I feel about their deaths may cloud my judgment. But that doesn’t stop me feeling angry that Ruth’s and Sarah’s questions are still unanswered. So now, if anybody asks me about it, I’ll say I’m not an expert but I’d always advise women to ask doctors plenty of questions, talk to relatives about any strong family history of cancer, and speak to the Lavender Trust (breastcancernow.org). TODAY’S ADVICE: A major review looking at data from 1.8 million women undergoing fertility drug treatments has found ‘no significant increase’ in their risk of developing breast cancer compared to women who hadn’t taken the drugs. The review, by King’s College London, is the largest study to date assessing fertility drugs as a potential cancer risk.