Do Fertility Drugs Increase My Risk for Breast Cancer?

Dr. Thomas Sellers answers the question: 'Do Fertility Drugs Impact My Risk?'

By
Thomas Sellers, Ph.D., M.P.H., Associate Director, Cancer Prevention & Control, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
September 21, 2007, 4:21 PM ET
1 min read

— -- Question: Do fertility drugs increase my risk for breast cancer?

Answer:One of the reasons for asking about fertility drugs is that often we prescribe hormones to help women become pregnant and there's a lot of scientific evidence that hormones are related to risk of breast cancer. With regard to fertility drugs though, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that it increases the risk of breast cancer.

Now, this is a really difficult question to answer, primarily because it's hard to sort out the fact that not having children increases risk for breast cancer. So is it the fact that that woman hasn't had a child? Or is it that she's had drugs to treat that infertility that is relating to breast cancer risk? And that's really a very difficult question.

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