According to a study, women getting fertility help in Britain shows that they are 60% at risk of having the type of cancer that many have acknowledged as the kind which is the hardest to treat. Dr. Alastair Sutcliffe and his colleagues from University College London examined the records of women who had fertility treatments between 1991 and 2010. Fertility treatments may lead to a higher risk of ovarian cancer, researchers reported Tuesday.
They found that after more than 8 years of follow up, 386 out of 255,786 women developed ovarian cancer. This was published in a description of their work released at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine meeting in Baltimore. Compared to the general population of women, patients who undergo Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) had a one-third times greater chances of developing ovarian cancer.
Women suffering from an overgrowth of the uterine lining (Endometriosis) had a higher probability of developing ovarian cancer, while women, who never had a child, either before or after treatments, were at the highest risk. Women whose husbands were the ones with fertility problems on the other hand were not at risk of developing this kind of cancer. Having more cycles of treatment did not seem to affect a woman's risk, either, explained by Dr. Owen Davis, President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). He also stated that the study showed it wasn't the treatment itself that increases a woman's risk of having an ovarian cancer.
According to NBC news, Dr. Davis' explanation was reassuring because it was cleared out that ovarian cancer is not caused mainly by assisted reproductive technology, but rather is closely related with an underlying infertility diagnoses. Now it will be important for experts to study what infertility factors may be associated with ovarian cancer risk, Davis added.
More than 21,000 American women are predicted to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year. It is also believed to kill more than 14,000. And because it's usually diagnosed in later stages after it has spread, it is considered as the deadliest cancer.