Use of Contraceptive Pills Elevates Risk of Breast Cancer: Study

By Staff Reporter - 01 Aug '14 05:34AM

Intake of oral contraceptive pills with high amounts of estrogen can up the risk of developing breast cancer, finds a study.

Many clinical researches have linked the use of hormonal birth control pills to gestational diabetes and uterine cancer in women. Scientists at the Public Health Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, warn against taking contraceptive drugs with high-doses of estrogen that increase chances of having breast cancer by 50 percent.

They looked at 1,102 breast cancer patients and 21,952 healthy group of women enrolled in the Group Health Cooperative in the Seattle-Puget Sound area during 1990 and 2009. The researchers individually tested different types of contraceptives to observe disease probability.

Pills containing high-dose estrogen hiked up breast cancer risk by 2.7 times while birth control drugs with moderate estrogen level increased risk by 1.6 times. Common contraceptives with drug combinations like 'ethynodiol diacetate' and triphasic with 0.75 milligrams of norethindrone, triggered the likelihood for breast cancer over 2.6 and 3.1 times.

In addition, the study observed no relation between the disease risk and oral contraceptives with low-dose estrogen.

"Our results suggest that use of contemporary oral contraceptives in the past year is associated with an increased breast cancer risk relative to never or former oral contraceptive use, and that this risk may vary by oral contraceptive formulation," said Elisabeth F. Beaber, study author and staff scientist at the Public Health Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

"Our results require confirmation and should be interpreted cautiously. Breast cancer is rare among young women and there are numerous established health benefits associated with oral contraceptive use that must be considered. In addition, prior studies suggest that the increased risk associated with recent oral contraceptive use declines after stopping oral contraceptives," she said.

More information is available online in the journal Cancer Research.