Hormonal contraception and risk of breast cancer: a critical look

Abstract

Today health professionals are not only required to know medicine, but scientific reading, interpretation, and communication of new data. The new information about contraception and hormonal therapies must be analyzed by gynecologists to determine whether or not the new data are applicable to their patients and if it has an impact on their health. Recently a new study of hormonal contraceptives and the risk of breast cancer was published. In this study, the investigators found an elevation of the relative risk of breast cancers on the users versus the nonusers of hormonal contraception. After analyzing the publication and other data available, it is our opinion that it is a very low increase of the risk and its impact should be evaluated case by case, not forgetting to take into account the numerous beneficial effects that hormonal contraception have.

摘要

当前, 医疗专业人员不仅需要了解医学知识, 而且需要科学地阅读、解释和交流新数据。有关避孕和激素治疗的新信息必须有妇科医生进行分析, 以确定这些新数据是否适用于他们的病人, 以及是否对他们的健康有影响。最近发表了一项关于激素避孕药和乳腺癌风险的新研究。在这项研究中, 研究人员发现, 用激素避孕的女性与不用激素避孕的女性相比, 患乳腺癌的风险更高。分析了出版物和其他可用数据后, 我们的观点是, 这项风险增加的非常低, 激素避孕的风险应该个例评估, 不要忘记考虑激素避孕带来的益处。

The Chinese abstracts are translated by Prof. Dr. Xiangyan Ruan and her team: Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100026, China.

Keywords:

• Hormonal contraception
• breast cancer
• breast cancer risk

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.