Should you be worried about a link between birth control and breast cancer?
Hormonal birth control methods can increase the risk of breast cancer about as much as smoking and drinking, a new study has found.
Using hormonal contraceptives, like the pill — even those with low doses of hormones — and intrauterine devices, comes with a 20 percent higher risk of breast cancer. The risk rises to 38 percent for women taking the pill after more than 10 years of use, according to a large study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Now, women will have to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of their contraceptive choices, says Dr. Freya Schnabel, director of breast surgery at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center.
“You have to put that 20 percent risk increase into context,” she says. “Women who smoke have a 20 percent increase in their risk for breast cancer . . . [and having] two drinks a day gives you about 20 percent increase, as well.”
But quitting birth control isn’t as straightforward as quitting smoking or drinking: Contraceptives can provide other health benefits, including warding off ovarian, colorectal and uterine cancers. Not to mention their most obvious effect. “Childbirth and pregnancy are not without their own risks,” Schnabel says.
So how scared should women be about using birth control? Schnabel says women shouldn’t throw away their pill packs just yet, but they may want to consider switching to non-hormonal birth control methods, like condoms or non-hormonal IUDs.
“The data is important, but I don’t believe that this is the sort of information that will lead us to say that people should not use hormonal contraceptives,” Schnabel says. “It’s going to have to be on a case-by-case basis.”
She encourages doctors to help their patients weigh this and other breast cancer risks — such as a family history with the disease — against other concerns, like pregnancy, endometriosis and other types of cancers.