Birth Control Pills Cause Breast Cancer !

Can birth control pills cause risk of breast cancer? It is a big YES; birth control pills increase the risk of breast cancer in women.

Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. The incidence of breast cancer is rising worldwide; therefore it is of major importance to evaluate the role of modifiable risk factors to better guide future primary prevention strategies. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, and fluid coming from the nipple, a newly-inverted nipple, or a red or scaly patch of skin. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) source, it has been estimated that roughly 14 percent of women ages 15 to 49 currently use the birth control pill globally and this number is far above in Pakistan. 

Pharmacologically, oral contraceptives, or birth control pills, are hormone-containing medications taken to prevent pregnancy. Majorly, there are three types of oral contraceptive pills: estrogen, progesterone and combined. The most commonly prescribed pill is the combined hormonal pill with estrogen and progesterone; however progesterone is primarily responsible for preventing pregnancy.

The main mechanism of action is to inhibit follicular development and prevent ovulation. Another primary mechanism of action is progesterone’s ability to inhibit sperm from penetrating through the cervix and upper genital tract by making the cervical mucus unfriendly.

A woman’s risk for breast cancer is linked to her reproductive history and with her lifetime hormonal exposure. Among the known risk factors for breast cancer, current research has established a conclusive link between oral contraceptives pills and development of invasive breast cancer.

Given the public health importance of breast cancer and the popularity of hormonal “pills” as contraceptives, the impact of oral contraceptive use on breast cancer risk assumes relevance from both a clinical and a social point of view.

Naturally, estrogen and progesterone stimulate the development and growth of some cancers that express receptors for these hormones, such as breast cancer. Because birth control pills contain synthetic versions of these female hormones, they could potentially also increase cancer risk. Furthermore, the breast is an estrogen sensitive organ. Many females who have been on birth control pills or estrogen replacement have found that the medications result in enlarged breasts which over-stimulate mammary cells and trigger breast cancer. These cells are more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of hormones from the prenatal period through puberty, until the first full term pregnancy, because the breast has not yet completed cell differentiation.

Through evidence of epidemiological data and years of investigations, it has been found that; there is an association between the exogenous administration of female sex hormones, as contraceptive pills and with a slight increase in the risk of developing breast cancer.

According to a recently published case-control study, it has been observed that for women younger than 35, there is one additional breast cancer cause for every 50,000 women who used hormonal contraceptives for a year.

Research reveals that, in women taking combination birth control pills, the risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer is slightly higher, both during and up to 10 years after stopping the pill. However, cancer diagnoses in women who had taken birth control pills were less clinically advanced than those who had never taken the pill.

Overall, the available level of evidence, established on epidemiological data, but no functional studies, have demonstrated that the risk of breast cancer is 20% higher in current and recent users of hormonal contraception than in those who had never used the drugs. Furthermore, the risk will be lower when birth control was used for less than one year, compared with longer use.

Given the tendency for women to start using birth control pills at younger ages and to use them for longer intervals prior to first birth, current research is directed to evaluate the clinically significant risk of oral contraceptives for breast cancer from menarche to first pregnancy.

Future work will be required to draw conclusions on the use of oral contraceptives and breast cancer onset by establishing “tailored” risk factors, based on studies focused on “precise” biological mechanisms. I believe that in this era of 4P (predictive, preventive, personalized, participative) medicines, adopting and promoting the “prevention” strategies with the full “participation” of women can enable them to choose healthy styles of life.