Through a study conducted on more than 64.000 old woman 20 – 30 years of residence in the US found that infertility was associated with an increased risk of developing cancer. The increased risk of developing cancer is equal to 2%
Cancer is rare in women who have experienced menopause, Because of that, researchers used data from US health insurance to obtain amounts large enough to produce meaningful results. Many insurance companies in the US offer coverage for female fertility testing and treatment.
Dr Gayathree Murugappan who is a reproductive and infertility endocrinologist at Stanford University School of Medicine (California, AS) as well as the leader of the study said: "We don't know the cause of the increase in cancer we found in this study, is it perhaps infertility itself, or from the causes of infertility, or the treatment that most people with infertility undergo. We can only show that there is a connection between the two. In the future, We hope to understand why a woman who is infertile has a higher risk of developing cancer; for example, by identifying the common mechanisms or similarities that can cause both cancer and infertility. “
Dr Murugappan and colleagues analyzed data from 64.345 women who have been documented as infertile by diagnosis, testing, and treatments in the Clinformatics® Data Mart database, the data used is data from the year 2003 to 2016. The database contains geographically diverse patient groups located in 50 different states in the US, although the majority of them are Ka Pendidikan. They compared the data with 3.128.345 women who are fertile and who undergo routine gynecological care. The women are in their 30s who were examined for 4 years old.
During the research period, there is 1.310 a cancer diagnosed among women who are fertile and women who are infertile. Breast cancer is the most common cancer. After taking into account and eliminating the factors that could affect the results (like smoking, obesity, age, education, and reproductive age), they found that women who were infertile were at risk overall 18% higher rates of cancer compared with the control group (fertile women), with absolute risk 2%.
Senior author of the paper, Associate Professor Michael Eisenberg dari Stanford University School of Medicine, say: "This research shows that 1 from 49 women who are infertile will develop cancer in the long term 4 years of study than women who were fertile where the ratio was smaller, that is 1 from 59 woman."
The researchers found that giving birth lowered the risk of cancer in the women in both groups. Among infertile women, 22.024 (34%) had at least one baby during the study, and 626.532 (20%) women in the control group had already given birth. The absolute risk of cancer is one of 56 infertile women and one of 86 women in the control group.
When the researchers did not include women who have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) or endometriosis, which has been linked to an increased risk of uterine and ovarian cancer, the absolute risk of cancer is one of 55 between infertile women and one of 88 among the control group
Look at the specific cancer risk, researchers found the risk of ovarian and uterine cancer was slightly higher. Both of these cancers are cancers caused by hormonal changes in women. They also found the risk of cancer caused by other factors was slightly higher among infertile women, cancers in question include lung cancer, thyroid, liver and gallbladder and leukemia. "While there are some other cancers that are not significant, it is important to note that the absolute increase in risk is not very large,”Said Dr. Murugappan.
Because most cancers are diagnosed in the elderly, one limitation of this study is the age of the women, as well as a short research period. Other restrictions include women who may undergo uterine fertility treatment outside of the US insurance system; Some women may be infertile without knowing it because they have always used contraception.
Prof. Eisenberg concluded: “Although the absolute increase in cancer risk among infertile women is very small, this increase was seen only in the short study time of four years. We need to carry out further studies with a longer study time to determine what factors might influence the long-term risk of cancer in infertile women. “
