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Cancer risk from pill reversible

15 November 2007

Key facts
500,000 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year worldwide. 15 percent of cancers wordwide are cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the seventh most common cancer in developed countries.

As far as we can tell, the risk begins to fall immediately after you stop taking the pill

Dr Jane Green, Cancer epidemiology unit, University of Oxford

The increased risk of cervical cancer caused by using the pill is reversible, new research shows.

The study, carried out by the cancer epidemiology unit at the University of Oxford, UK, found that 10 years after stopping the pill, the risk of developing cervical cancer returns to levels similar to those in women who have never used the contraceptive.

"As far as we can tell, the risk begins to fall immediately after you stop taking the pill," lead researcher Dr Jane Green told the Bupa health information team. "The increased risk eventually goes away."

Previous research has shown that the risk of developing cervical cancer increases the longer you take the pill. However, it wasn't known if this effect persisted.

"In 2003 we reviewed the literature and it was clear that while there was an increased risk while women were taking the pill, it wasn't clear what the risk was afterwards," explained Dr Green.

"This is important because women usually take the pill when young, but cervical cancer generally develops when older," she added. "So the biggest impact on health is determined by past use."

The team gathered results from 24 worldwide studies involving 16,573 women with cervical cancer and 35,509 women without cervical cancer.

They found that taking the pill for over five years almost doubles the risk for cervical cancer, at that time. However, analysis showed that 10 years after stopping the pill, the risk falls to that of women who never took the pill.

"The overall increase in risk of cervical cancer is small, and it's outweighed by the reduction in the risk of other cancers such as endometrial or ovarian cancer which we know the pill brings." She added that these benefits seem to persist.

A vaccine against some types of human papilloma virus (HPV) - the major cause of cervical cancer - has been developed and is likely to prevent many cases of cervical cancer in the future.