Fertility treatment doesn’t up cancer risk, says IVF study

LONDON - Fertility treatment which includes in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) does not up a woman’s risk of cancer despite the hormones used.

Some previous studies had suggested that fertility drugs might be linked with breast, uterine and ovarian cancers.

However, a large study from the University of Lund in Sweden found far fewer women developed one ore more cancers following IVF compared to those who had not had such treatment, reports the journal Human Reproduction.

Lund scientists analysed data from 24,000 women who gave birth after IVF between 1982 and 2006, reports the Daily Mail.

They compared rates of cancer in these women to 1.4 million women in the general Swedish population who also gave birth over that period.

Fewer than two percent of women in the IVF group developed one or more cancers during an average follow-up period of eight years, compared to close to five percent of the other group.

After accounting for maternal age, the number of previous pregnancies and smoking status, the overall risk of cancer was about 25 percent lower for women who had IVF.

‘A couple who needs IVF does not have to be afraid that the hormone treatment used - at least those used in Sweden - will carry a risk for the woman to develop cancer,’ study leader Bengt Kallen said.