Endometriosis and Risk of Certain Cancers
For the first time, doctors have shown that although endometriosis is associated with an increased risk of various cancers, this risk does not depend on the number of times women with the condition have given birth.
Dr Anna-Sofia Melin, a specialist doctor in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Karolinska University Hospital (Stockholm, Sweden) presented earlier in the week at the 23rd annual meeting of the European European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology:
“Several epidemiological studies have shown an increased cancer risk among women with endometriosis, especially ovarian cancer.
Infertility and never having given birth (nulliparity) are also known risk factors for different types of cancer, such as breast and endometrial cancer.
However, as far as we know, this is the first study to investigate cancer risk among women with endometriosis that also stratifies for parity.”
Of unknown cause, endometriosis is a condition wherein the tissue that should line the surface of the woman’s uterus grows somewhere else – like the ovaries, behind the uterus, the bladder – leading to pain, heavy periods and even infertility.
The researchers found that endometriosis increased the risk of developing ovarian cancer by more than a third (37%) above the risk for the normal population of women without endometriosis.
There were similar increases in risk for endocrine tumours (38%), kidney cancer (36%) and thyroid cancer (33%). Slightly lower increases were found for brain tumours (27%) and malignant melanoma (23%), and there was a small increased risk of breast cancer (8%).
Interestingly, women with endometriosis had a reduced risk of cervical cancer of just under a third (29%).
Find more details from the full report.
Tags: cancer-risk, endometriosisRelated Stories
POSTED IN: general commentary, on cervical cancer, on ovarian cancer, on uterine cancer
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