News at UI Health

A long-term study of women who used ovary-stimulating hormones for fertility treatment found no widespread evidence of a higher cancer risk, researchers say.  But the new study found "little evidence" of a higher risk linked to hormone treatment, its authors said. Dr. Humberto Scoccia from the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System said that the study's findings do not support "a strong relationship" between the use of fertility drugs (mainly clomiphene citrate) and breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers. He described the results as "generally reassuring", noting that this study had considerably more statistical power than previous efforts. However, despite the long follow-up of this study he urged continuous monitoring because of the "relatively young age of our study population and the later peak incidence of most of these cancers". It is also likely that the proportion of patients using gonadotrophins for ovarian stimulation - particularly in IVF - increased substantially after the mid-1980s.

Read the press release.
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