All hormonal contraceptives, including the well-known progestogen-only pills, have a marginally elevated risk of breast cancer, according to a recent study.
The study’s authors emphasised that it is important to compare the advantages of hormonal contraceptives, especially the protection they offer against other types of female cancer, against the increased risk of breast cancer.
A higher risk of breast cancer has been linked to two-hormone, or combination, contraceptives, which use both oestrogen and progestogen.
Although research on the associations between progestogen-only contraceptives and breast cancer has been sparse, their use has increased significantly over the past ten years.
According to the study, which was written up in the medical journal PLOS Medicine, the risk of breast cancer in women taking hormonal contraceptives that contained both progestogen and oestrogen was roughly equivalent to that of women using progestogen only.
The study found that women who take hormonal contraceptives have a 20–30% increased risk of breast cancer compared to women who do not.
The results echo those that were previously reported, notably in a sizable study from 1996.
Regardless of the administration route — oral pill, IUD, implant, or injection — or whether it is a combination pill or a progestogen alone, the risk is essentially the same.
The authors of the study evaluated the absolute extra risk linked with hormonal contraceptives, taking into account that the risk of breast cancer rises with age.
According to them, eight cases of breast cancer per 100,000 women who used hormonal contraception for five years between the ages of 16 and 20 constituted eight cases.
There was 265 cases per 100,000 people aged 35 to 39.
