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Oral contraceptives may reduce risk of endometrial cancer

For every five years women are on the pill, they decrease their chances of developing the disease by 25 percent.

By Stephen Feller

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Women who have taken the contraceptive pill have a lowered risk of developing endometrial cancer for more than 30 years, even if they only took it for a few years, according to a large review of studies conducted around the world.

Some previous studies have found the pill can increase the risk for other types of cancer, however researchers found in a study published in The Lancet Oncology that for every 5 years a woman uses oral contraceptives she lowers her risk of endometrial cancer, also referred to as womb or uterine cancer.

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The research showed that about 400,000 cases of the disease were prevented in the last 50 years because women had taken the pill in that time. Roughly 200,000 thousand of those were in the last decade.

"We already know that taking the pill is linked with a long-term reduction in womb cancer risk," said Fiona Osgun, a health information officer at Cancer Research UK, in a press release. "And this large study adds more data on how long this effect lasts -- showing that women's risk of womb cancer is reduced for over 30 years after they've stopped taking the pill. The pill can also affect a woman's risk of other cancer types -- increasing her risk of breast and cervical cancers, but also reducing her chances of developing ovarian cancer."

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Researchers reviewed data collected in 36 studies conducted over 50 years that included 27,276 women with endometrial cancer, and 115,743 women without it. They found that for every 100 women taking the pill, 1.3 women would be diagnosed with endometrial cancer, while 2.3 out of 100 women who had not taken the pill would develop the cancer.

Hormones in the pill prevent a thickening of the uterine wall, lowering the chances that abnormal cells will grow and become cancerous, said researchers, which is why the risk is lowered.

"This really helps to quantify it in a way doctors and patients can understand," Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital, told Newsweek. "It's really important for a patient to realize that there are these benefits."

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