Hormonal contraceptives ‘create higher breast cancer risk’

WOMEN WHO use hormonal contraceptives have a 20 per cent higher risk of breast cancer than those who do not use them, according to new research.

The work is said to be the largest study of its kind ever conducted on breast cancer and hormonal contraception such as the combined pill, the progestogen-only pill and non-oral products such as the hormone-intrauterine system (IUS).

It followed 1.8 million Danish women aged under 50 from 1995 to 2012 to assess breast cancer risk in users of different types of hormonal contraception as compared to women who had never used hormonal contraception. Researchers found that in current and recent users of any type of hormonal contraception, the risk of breast cancer was 20 per cent higher, with 11,517 new breast cancers detected during the study period.

The research was carried out by Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen. However, the study suggested the numbers affected were likely to be low. Professor Phil Hannaford, who led the research team based in Aberdeen, said: “Breast cancer is rare in young women. In this study, the absolute extra risk of breast cancer associated with use of hormonal contraception among all women age 15-49 was 1.3 per 10,000 person-years, or one extra breast cancer for every 7,690 women using hormonal contraception for one year.”