Finding That Oral Contraceptive Use Reduces Ovarian Cancer 'Worth Celebrating,' Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs;  Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 31 Jan 2008 - 8:00 PDT

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The recent finding that the risk of developing ovarian cancer declines the longer a woman takes oral contraceptives is "worth celebrating, partly because health claims about the pill are often much harder to parse," Slate columnist Amanda Schaffer writes in an opinion piece (Schaffer, Slate, 1/29).

For the study on ovarian cancer, published Friday in the Lancet, Valerie Beral of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University and colleagues analyzed data from more than 45 studies conducted in 21 countries worldwide. Women who took oral contraceptives for four years or fewer decreased their risk of ovarian cancer by about 22%, compared with a reduced risk of more than 33% for women who took the pill for five years and a 58% reduced risk for women who took the pill for more than 15 years, according to the study. The protection against the disease remained for more than 30 years after the women stopped using the pill but did decrease over time, the study found (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 1/28).

According to Schaffer, the study "seal[ed] the deal" on the benefits of oral contraceptives in preventing ovarian cancer, but the effect of the pill on breast cancer, cardiovascular disease and sex drive has been a "moving target for medical research." Some studies have found that oral contraceptives slightly increase the risk of breast cancer, but the "bottom line tends toward reassurance" that the pill does not have a large effect on breast cancer, Schaffer writes. Studies about the effect of the pill on cardiovascular disease and sex drive "go both ways," according to Schaffer. Despite "[w]hatever else we don't know" about oral contraceptives, the finding in the Lancet study that the pill has prevented an estimated 200,000 ovarian cancer cancers and 100,000 deaths from the disease is "decisively good news," she writes (Slate, 1/29).

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