IVF in young age tied to breast cancer

NEW YORK - Reuters

Women who go through in vitro fertilization (IVF) early in life are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to those who don’t undergo the treatment, according to an Australian study.

But the findings, based on a study of more than 21,000 women and published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, cannot determine whether IVF contributed to the cancers or whether something else could explain the risk.

“I don’t think it’s a huge increased risk that you should worry or panic (about),” said Louise Stewart, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the University of Western Australia in Crawley.
She added, however, that the findings did show a link between the two and doctors should keep that in mind.

For the study, Stewart and her colleagues collected information on 21,025 women between the ages of 20 and 40 who went through fertility treatment between 1983 and 2002. Roughly 1.7 percent of the 13,644 women who only used fertility drugs without IVF ended up developing breast cancer by the end of the study. 

That figure was about two percent for women who used fertility drugs and underwent IVF.