By Joe Elia, Oral contraceptive (OC) use is estimated to have lowered the incidence of endometrial cancer by some 200,000 cases over the past decade, according to a Lancet Oncology analysis. Researchers pooled individual data from 36 epidemiological studies of hormonal contraceptive use. They compared endometrial cancer incidence in users of OCs versus nonusers (there were some 27,000 women with cancer and 116,000 women without it in the international cohort). Cancer risk was lower among women who had ever used OCs, relative to those who never had (RR, 0.69).
Increasing length of use was associated with lower risk. Overall, with 10 years of OC use, the absolute risk for endometrial cancer by age 75 was reduced to 1.3 per 100 women down from 2.3 per 100 among nonusers. Lancet commentators call the findings "impressive and instructive," and say the question now is whether "the available…
