Infertility Associated With Reduced Breast Cancer Risk

The latest findings of a study involving more than 116,000 women, indicates that those who reported infertility attributed to an ovulatory disorder had a significantly lower occurrence of breast cancer than women who did not testimony problems becoming pregnant, according to discoveries published in the December 11/25 issues of the Archives of Internal Medicine. These discoveries help many doctors at the moment they have to prescribe a specifically procedure for infertility.

Last year, Dr. Kathryn L. Terry and a group of health professionals from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts noted that there have been implications of an inverse association between infertility because of ovulatory disorders and breast cancer risk. To make this clear Dr. Terry, who led the group of professionals, and her colleagues started a research to find an answer about this trouble. The group of investigators evaluated prospectively collected data from the Nurses' Health Study II, a cohort of 116 671 female registered nurses aged 25 to 42 years at baseline. To asses the data, they used statistical techniques that permitted them to find answers for the initial problem.

The prevalence of breast cancer was lowest amid women with infertility due to ovulatory disorder who received ovulation-induction treatment than in women who did not present trouble conceiving.

In addition, the prevalence of suffering breast cancer was lowest in women who reported ovulatory disorder and use of ovulation-induction treatment than in those who did not present problems in theirs ovulatory process.

As a conclusion Dr. Terry sustains "Our findings are comforting since many infertile women and their clinicians are worried about the long-term repercussion of infertility therapy. Also, every time doctors prescribe therapy for infertility, they need to know how it affects the ovulatory process and the association with breast cancer."

"However, it is difficult to tease apart the true effect of infertility drugs and infertility, since women who have the most difficultly becoming pregnant will most prone be taking infertility drugs the longest. On the other side, we have to remember that these women are less likely to suffer breast cancer according to the latest findings” she added.

References: TERRY, Kathryn, et al. “A Prospective Study of Infertility Due to Ovulatory Disorders, Ovulation Induction, and Incidence of Breast Cancer” 2006.

©Copyright 2008. Women's Health Issues. All rights reserved.