Abortion, miscarriages and breast cancer no link found

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 26 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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If you have an abortion or a miscarriage your risk of getting breast cancer is not increased, says a new large-scale study. You can read about this study in The Lancet.

The report involved 83,000 women with breast cancer, it examined 53 different studies.

According to the findings, all those 83,000 women showed now higher indications of having had an abortion or miscarriage that the rates one would see in the rest of the population.

According to Dr. Valerie Beral, Epidemiologist, University of Oxford, UK, one of the lead authors of this paper, the study looked at 90% of the world's studies on breast cancer, abortion and miscarriage.

This topic has been controversial among experts. Some said there was a link while others insisted there wasn't.

The most reliable studies were of a 'prospective' design and accounted for 44,000 women. These studies looked at abortion records of women before they had breast cancer and followed them up. The rates were then compared to those of women in the general population.

They found no link at all between abortions, miscarriages and breast cancer when they were examined as a group.

The other studies they looked at are called 'retrospective' studies - 39,000 women. In these studies the women already had breast cancer. They were asked if they had ever had an abortion or miscarriage.

The problem with this second group is that some of the women are seeking a cause for their cancer. They are more likely to report an abortion or miscarriage. This could affect the reality of the figures.

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