Study finds same small rise in breast cancer risk in many forms of hormonal birth control
A study finds that the slightly elevated risk of breast cancer doesn't change with the form of hormonal birth control.
Pills, patches, implants, and injections — the various forms of hormonal birth control have different formulations and doses of estrogen, progestin, or both. One might think, then, that they may have an unequal influence on breast cancer risk, but a new study in PLOS Medicine on Tuesday suggests that’s not so. The analysis found that most forms of hormonal birth control, regardless of their formulation, seem to confer roughly the same, small increase to breast cancer risk.
“It’s kind of interesting and strange that all of these different hormonal contraceptives with or without estrogen have an increased risk so close to each other,” said Carolyn Westhoff, an obstetrician and contraceptives researcher at Columbia University who did not work on the study.
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