Every year thousands of women seek the help of fertility doctors to conceive. The treatments consist of hormone injections that stimulate the body to produce more eggs. The procedure, known as in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, is now believed to cause tumors.
The new findings
Lead researcher Flora van Leeuwen, head of the epidemiology department in The Netherlands Cancer Institute, says women that undergo IVF are four times more likely to have “borderline ovarian tumors.”
The medical records of 19,000 infertile women in the Netherlands who underwent ovarian stimulation and about 6,000 infertile women who did not undergo IVF were examined in this study.
“Our data clearly show that ovarian stimulation for IVF is associated with an increased risk of borderline ovarian tumors and this risk remains elevated up to more than 15 years after the first cycle of treatment,” van Leeuwen explained in a journal news release.
More research needed
While more studies will be conducted in the near future, researchers want to know if the number of IVF treatments leads to an increase in tumors. If that is the case, they feel patients should be warned.
“If we find out that women who receive several IVF cycles or large doses of ovarian-stimulating drugs are at a greater risk of ovarian cancer, then these women would need to be informed about these risks when continuing IVF treatment and possibly advised to discontinue treatment after three to six cycles,” she said.
Not everyone believes the potential danger
The International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) issued a statement in response to the new study findings. “Over the last decade, several reports have considered the long-term risks of ovarian stimulation practiced as part of the IVF process. These reports have been generally reassuring in terms of risk of ovarian cancer.”
