Ovarian stimulation, used in infertility treatments, is not associated with an increased risk of cancer. The authors of this work nonetheless recommend that women be followed.
“Overall reassuring” results. This is how the authors qualify the results of their work on a possible link between the treatments used in infertility and the risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers.
The study, presented at the annual congress of the European society of human reproduction and embryology (ESHRE), included no less than 12,193 women treated for infertility between 1965 and 1988. After a follow-up of 30 years, were identified 749 cases of cancer. breast, 119 cases of uterine cancer and 85 of the ovaries. There is therefore “little evidence”, say the authors, that the use of fertility hormones increases the long-term risk of cancer in women.
Hormones involved in cancers
Yet this link was “biologically plausible”. Indeed, infertility treatments increase the level of hormones estradiol and progesterone, known to be involved in the pathogenesis of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers. However, the researchers refuse to close the debate and do not consider their results to be definitive. And this for many reasons. On the one hand, because long-term use of clomiphene citrate was still associated with an increased risk of cancer, but only in women who had taken this drug for a significantly longer period than average (12 cycles or more).
On the other hand, because the women monitored were relatively young and the peak incidence of cancer occurred later in life. And finally, infertility treatments have evolved since women were included in the study. The use of gonadotropins in IVF in fact increased markedly from the mid-1980s. In the study, only 10% of them received gonadotropins. The authors of the study therefore urge their colleagues to maintain continuous monitoring after having been treated for their infertility.
.
