Medically Assisted Reproduction and Hormone-Related Cancers

Is medically assisted reproduction treatment associated with an increased risk of hormone-related cancers?In this cohort study of 1 748 927 women in Australia aged 18 to 55 years, hormone-related cancers were higher after some types of medically assisted reproduction treatment. This excess may be partly or wholly due to detection bias and unmeasured confounding from infertility-related conditions, like endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome, and anovulation, obesity, and race and ethnicity.These findings suggest clinicians and women seeking medically assisted reproduction should be aware that hormone-related cancer risk could be associated with treatment, although this risk may not be attributable to the treatment itself.

Corresponding Author: Adrian Raymond Walker, PhD, Centre for Big Data Research in Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia (adrian.walker@unsw.edu.au).

Link to the article in your story

We encourage you to link out to this article in your story using the link below. It includes an access token that will give free access to the article for your readers up to one year after publication. (The link will be live after the article publishes and embargo is lifted.)

Please see the article for additional information, including full author list, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Need more information? Contact us.