Pill Poses Little Cervical Cancer Risk

Pill Poses Little Cervical Cancer Risk
FRIDAY, Nov. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Women taking oralcontraceptives are at a slightly increased risk for developing cervicalcancer, but a decade after stopping the pill even this very small riskdisappears, a new British study suggests.
However, that finding doesn't change the recommendation for women tocontinue getting screened for cervical cancer, experts say.
"This is good news," said lead researcher Dr. Jane Green, anepidemiologist in the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University ofOxford. "We have been able to estimate the lifetime risk of cervicalcancer for women on the pill and find it's really quite small," shesaid.
"The small increase in cervical cancer we see in women who are takingoral contraceptives starts to fall once pill use stops and has really goneaway by 10 years after stopping use," Green said.
"The pill has many other benefits, including reducing the risk of othercancers, such as ovarian cancer and womb cancer," Green added.
The report is published in the Nov.10 issue of The Lancet.
In the study, Green and her colleagues from the InternationalCollaboration of Epidemiological Studies of Cervical Cancer collected dataon almost 16,600 women with cervical cancer and more than 35,500 womenwithout cervical cancer. These women had participated in a total of 24studies.
Green's team confirmed that the risk of cervical cancer among women whouse oral contraceptives does increase over time. But this increase in riskis very small -- women who take contraceptives for five years or more haveonly about twice the risk compared with women who never took the pill.
In absolute terms, that means that a 20-year-old woman living in adeveloped country who uses an oral contraceptive for 10 years increasesher odds of developing cervical cancer by age 50 from 3.8 cases per 1,000women (without Pill use) to 4.5 per 1,000 women after using oralcontraception. In less developed countries, where access to cervicalcancer screening is more limited, that risk rises from 7.3 to 8.3 casesper 1,000 women, the researchers estimated.
Similar risk was seen for invasive and localized cancer and in womenwho have the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes about 70 percent ofall cervical cancers, Green noted.
Although the risk for cervical cancer associated with the Pill issmall, Green advised women to still be screened for the disease."Screening for cervical cancer is effective," she said. "The advice is togo for regular screenings."
Eventually, Green hopes that the vaccination against the humanpapillomavirus will go a long way to preventing many cases of cervicalcancer.
One expert agreed that the findings showed the risk for cervical cancerfrom oral contraceptives was very small.
"This is reassuring news for women," said Dr. Peter Sasieni, from theWolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary University ofLondon and author of an accompanying journal comment. "There is really aminimal risk from oral contraceptives, and that risk disappears fairlysoon when you stop taking them," he said.
"When making a decision about what from of contraception to use, womenshouldn't worry about cervical cancer," Sasieni concluded. "It's not anissue," he said.
However, he believes that taking oral contraceptives is another goodreason to get screened regularly for the disease. "By going for regularscreenings, a women can reduce her risk by 80 percent," Sasieni said.
Another expert agreed that women shouldn't worry about the Pill andcervical cancer risk.
"I don't think women are basing their decision of which form ofcontraception to use on the risk for cervical cancer," said Debbie Saslow,director of breast and gynecologic cancer at the American Cancer Society."People who want to use oral contraceptives should not be alarmed over theslight increase in cervical cancer risk," she said.
However, women -- whether they take oral contraceptives or not --should be getting regular cervical cancer screening, Saslow said.