(cosmopolitan.com) It's no secret that in vitro fertilization — a procedure that seriously messes with your sex hormones to increase the odds of implantation when embryos are manually inserted into your uterus — can be a godsend for women who are struggling to conceive. But the technique's got its downsides: It can be time-consuming, expensive, emotionally trying, and sometimes unsuccessful. Even worse: Research has long suggested that all those hormones that prep your body to grow a baby could increase the risk of developing breast cancer, particularly as IVF patients age, but in young patients too.
Luckily, there's good news on this front: A massive study recently published in the medical journal JAMA just discounted the health risk, providing some pretty solid proof that fertility treatment patients face no greater risk of breast cancer than the general population.
The study tracked more than 25,000 women in the Netherlands who received IVF or alternative fertility treatments for a median of about 21 years. While 839 women were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and another 109 women were diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer, there was no indication that their fertility treatments had anything to do with it. Actually, those who went through seven or more cycles of IVF had even lower rates of breast cancer than the rest of the study's participants, which suggests if there were any risks, they aren't cumulative.
Because the women in this study could still develop breast cancer as they age, an American Cancer Society representative told the New York Times the data remains inconclusive. On the other hand, she still applauded the study for adding "significant amount of evidence that there is no link between IVF and breast cancer" — which should definitely comfort couples who are desperate for a child and considering the procedure.
Fuente: www.cosmopolitan.com
