Study Dispels Abortion-Breast Cancer Link
Findings Show Abortion Doesn't Raise Breast Cancer Risk
March 25, 2004 -- A major new study on the relationship between abortion and breast cancer suggests that pregnancies ending in abortion do not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.
British researchers reviewed studies involving 83,000 women and found that pregnancies ending in abortion or miscarriage (also known as spontaneous abortion) do not significantly affect a woman's risk of developing breast cancer.
"This is the first time that the vast majority -- over 90% of studies that have ever looked at the relationship between abortion and breast cancer -- have been brought together and looked at," says researcher Valerie Beral, professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford, England. "Overall, we found quite clear evidence that there's no increased risk of breastcancer from either miscarriage or abortion."
Researchers say previous studies that suggested having an abortion slightly increases a woman's risk of breastcancer were flawed because they were based on women reporting having had an abortion after a diagnosis of breast cancer, known as a retrospective study.
"Studies can give misleading results if women are asked about previous abortions only after they are diagnosed with breast cancer," says researcher Richard Peto of Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer, in a news release. "This may well be because, on average, women with breast cancer are more likely than other women to disclose any prior induced abortions."
Therefore, their analysis relied primarily on studies based on information on abortion collected before the diagnosis of breast cancer, known as a prospective data.
Despite the results of this study, which agree with several recent consensus statements from major medical organizations, the controversy surrounding the issue isn't likely to falter due to the highly political nature of the abortion debate.
Sorting Through the Studies on Breast Cancer and Abortion
In the study, published in the March 27 issue of The Lancet, researchers analyzed data on individual women from 53 studies in 16 countries. Researchers compared the effects of having an abortion or miscarriage with those of never having been pregnant on breast cancer risk.
The study was funded by Cancer Research UK.