Risks: IVF brings a slightly higher cancer risk

VITAL SIGNS

Dutch researchers studied more than 19,000 women age 40 and younger who had IVF and about 6,000 who had visited fertility clinics without having the procedure.

After 15 years of follow-up, they found that women who had undergone IVF were more than four times as likely as those who had not to develop borderline ovarian cancer, a malignancy that is treatable and survivable.

The findings, published online October 26, 2011 in the journal Human Reproduction, held even after adjusting for age, previous pregnancies, the cause of infertility and other factors. The risk did not increase with multiple treatments or the number of eggs harvested, and there was no significant increase in invasive ovarian cancer.

The risk for ovarian cancer of any kind by age 55 is small — about 0.45 per cent in the population studied — and the authors estimate from their data that the risk for women who have had IVF would rise to 0.71 per cent.

“This shouldn’t be a cause of concern to women undergoing IVF,” said Flora E van Leeuwen, the lead author. “We’re talking about an increased risk of a very rare tumour that is highly treatable.”

Dr van Leeuwen is head of epidemiology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.