Oral Contraceptives prevented 200000 Endometrial Cancer Cases in last 10 Years

The researchers estimate that oral contraceptives (‘the Pill’) has prevented around 200,000 cases of womb cancer, in high income countries, in past decade, and around 400,000 cases in the past 50 years.

For every five years on the pill, the risk of endometrial cancer reduces by about a quarter.

The benefits increase the longer a woman is on the pill, and a woman’s weight, use of menopause hormone therapy, smoking and whether or not she has had children do not seem to matter.

She added: “Previous research has shown that the pill also protects against ovarian cancer”.

“Women who use it when they are in their 20s or even younger continue to benefit into their 50s and older, when cancer becomes more common”, says study co-author Valerie Beral, from the University of Oxford.

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The study may surprise some as oestrogen levels in oral contraceptives have decreased markedly over the years. In the study, the researchers looked at data from 27,276 women with endometrial cancer and as a control group, 115,743 women who were not having the cancer from 36 different studies.

In a commentary in the journal on the paper, Nicolas Wentzensen and Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, from the National Cancer Institute in the US, say that the important question now is whether this allows women to better balance the benefits and the potential harms of taking the pill – and also to work out whether the pill might be useful in some circumstances specifically to prevent cancer.

Associate Professor Canfell said women should not decide to take the pill based on the research without speaking to their doctors, but should feel reassured of the pill’s safety given the findings.

Pills in the 1960s usually contained more than double the oestrogen of pills in the 1980s.

A study in the medical journal Lancet Oncology, found that taking “the pill” over an extended period provided protection against endometrial cancer, which affects the womb.

In both cases, the protection can last for more than 30 years, long after women have stopped using contraceptives.

This suggests that estrogen amounts in lower-dose pills are still sufficient to reduce the risk of uterine cancers, Beral’s team said.

“As far as cancer is concerned, they’re better off if they’ve taken the pill”.

Cancer Research UK advises women to weigh up the risks, especially those with a family history of breast cancer.