Pill Raises Cervical Cancer Risk, But Only Slightly

LONDON -- Women taking a birth control pill have a slightly higher risk
of cervical cancer, but that risk disappears a decade after they stop
taking it, scientists say.

International researchers reported in the British medical
journal, The Lancet, that women who took the pill for at least five
years had nearly double the cervical cancer risk of women who had never
taken the pill.

But that risk is small and outweighed by the fact that the
pill reduces the threat of other forms of cancer, The Lancet report
said.

In developed countries, women up to the age of 50 who have
never used oral contraceptives have a 3.8 in 1,000 risk of developing
cervical cancer. That rises slightly to 4 in 1,000 for women who use
the pill for at least five years, and 4.5 in 1,000 for those who use it
for a decade.

In developing countries, taking oral contraceptives raises the
risk of cervical cancer from 7.3 in 1,000 to 8.3 in 1,000.

"The bottom line is that this is a very small risk," said Dr.
Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecological cancer at the
American Cancer Society. Saslow was not linked to the study.

Cervical cancer cases typically affect women in their 30s --
when many may be on the pill.

Previous research has linked the pill to cervical cancer, but
the Lancet study appears to show for the first time that this
connection is temporary. Ten years after women stop taking oral
contraceptives, their risk for cervical cancer is virtually the same as
that for women who never took them.

The research was led by Dr. Jane Green of Cancer Research UK's
epidemiology unit at the University of Oxford.

Green and colleagues examined data from 24 studies worldwide,
including 16,573 women with cervical cancer and 35,509 without it. The
study was funded by the World Health Organization, the International
Agency for Research on Cancer and Cancer Research UK.

Experts are not sure why oral contraceptives -- which contain
estrogen and progestagen -- might increase the cervical cancer risk.
The contraceptives also are thought to raise the chance of breast
cancer, which may be triggered in part by hormone imbalances.

But those same hormones can protect against other cancers such
as ovarian and womb. And unlike cervical and breast cancer, there is no
way to screen for ovarian or womb cancer.

"The small increases in risk for cervical and breast cancers
are outweighed by reduced risks for ovarian and womb cancer," Green
said in a statement.

Doctors said that as long as women are routinely screened for
cervical cancer, the increased odds that come with the birth control
pill should not cause concern. If detected early, cervical cancer is
potentially curable.

"Fear of cervical cancer should not be a reason to avoid use
of oral contraception," wrote Peter Sasieni of Queen Mary University of
London, in an accompanying commentary in The Lancet.

Source: Associated
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