Taking contraceptive pill can cut cancer risk
TAKING contraceptive pills for between 10 and 15 years is likely to halve your risk of developing a deadly uterine cancer, groundbreaking research has found.
The international team of experts says widespread use of the pill in developed countries is likely to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives since the 1960s, and women should feel confident that the benefits of the drug outweigh its risks when it comes to cancer.
The study of more than 27,000 women found that for every five years a woman was on the pill, her risk of cancer of the endometrium, which lines the uterus, decreased by about 25 per cent.
The benefits increase the longer a woman is on the pill, and occur independently of a range of cancer risk factors including weight, use of menopause hormone therapy, smoking and whether or not she has had children. Research into the effect hormonal contraceptives had on cancer has been mixed. It appears that women on the pill still have an increased risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer while they are taking it.
But Associate Professor Karen Canfell from Australia who was part of the research group, says the good news is, it is a relatively modest and transient risk, ‘‘so it goes back to normal within 10 years’’.
‘‘I think if you look at a woman’s overall lifetime risk of developing any cancer, the benefit in terms of ovarian and endometrium cancer outweighs the transient risk in terms of breast and cervical cancer.’’
Canfell says women should not decide to take the pill based on the research without speaking to their doctor, but should feel reassured of the pill’s safety.