No Cancer Risk From IVF Drugs, Study Shows

A study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago found that women who used ovary-stimulating hormones for fertility treatment had no greater cancer risk than women who didn’t use the drugs—findings that go against the results of a number of previous studies indicating that women who used such IVF drugs were putting themselves at greater risk of developing cancer. Scientists have often expressed concern because human menopausal gonadotrophins and follicle stimulating hormone, the two IVF drugs used to stimulate the ovaries, produce higher levels of estradiol and progesterone. Higher levels of those hormones are also associated with the development of breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers.

Humberto Scoccia of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who participated in the study, called the results “generally reassuring.” He noted that this study was more comprehensive and included more patients than other similar studies. The other authors of the study said that there was “little evidence” of hormone treatments leading to a higher risk of developing cancer.
 

The results of the study come from data gleaned from a 30 year monitoring program. Nearly 10,000 women treated for infertility from 1965 to 1988 provided data that was used in the study. Five U.S. clinics participated. The results showed that, of 10,000 women treated for infertility, 749 developed breast cancer, 119 uterine cancer, and 85 ovarian cancer.

Among women who used clomiphene, an old fertility drug that was phased out in the past few decades, there was an increased risk of developing breast cancer. But that drug has long been taken off the market and is no longer prescribed to women who are trying to conceive.

Scoccia noted that monitoring was still necessary however, because many of the women in the study were still young and cancers generally develop at a later age.