Risk of cancer and the oral contraceptive pill

doi:10.1136/bmj.39336.503067.BE

BMJ 2007;335:621-622 (29 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.39336.503067.BE (published 12 September 2007)

Editorials

Risk of cancer and the oral contraceptive pill

Long term follow-up of women in the UK shows no increased risk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In the preface to the first comprehensive publication from theRoyal College of General Practitioners' oral contraception studySir Richard Doll wrote, "Final judgement [on the safety of thepill] must still await the passage of time, when observationscan be made of women who have used the pill for 10 or 20 years."¹Thirty years later, in this week's BMJ, Hannaford and colleagues²report incidence rates of cancer in relation to use of the pillamong women in the study cohort.

Between 1968 and 1969, 45 950 women in the United Kingdom wereenrolled in the study, and they were followed for a mean of24 years. Full assessment of the risk of cancer needs a longfollow-up as effects of the pill may persist many years afterits use has been stopped. Incidence rates of cancer in womenwho ever used the pill were compared with rates . . . [Full text of this article]

Olav Meirik, senior research associate¹, Timothy M M Farley, scientist²

¹ Instituto Chileno de Medicina Reproductiva (ICMER), Jose Ramon Gutierrez 295, Santiago, Chile, ² Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland

farleyt@who.int

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