100 thousand lives saved due to birth pills
Birth
control pills are found to be life-saver from deaths occuring due to ovarian cancer
for the past 50 years
The contraceptive pill has prevented some 200,000
cases of ovarian cancer and 100,000 deaths from this disease since its introduction
nearly half a century ago, according to a study published in next Saturday's Lancet
medical journal.
Over the next decade, around 30,000 extra cases of ovarian
cancer are likely to be prevented each year because of the pill, it adds.
The figure are extrapolated from an overview of 45 studies in 21 countries involving
23,000 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 87,000 who were otherwise healthy.
Women who had been using oral contraceptives were far less likely to have
this form of cancer than counterparts who had not been using the pill, the review
found.
And the longer a woman had been on the pill, the more the risk
diminished. Ten years on the pill reduced the risk of ovarian cancer before the
age of 75 by a third, and the risk of death by 30 per cent.
The benefit
was still perceptible, if somewhat reduced, more than 30 years after the woman
stopped taking the pill.
The paper, based on long-term research, sheds
light on the long-term protective advantage of oral contraceptives when it comes
to ovarian cancer.
Other research, though, has found a statistically significant
increased risk of cancer of the breast, cervix or central nervous system among
users of the pill.
Around 120 million women around the world used the
pill in 2002, 80 million of them in developing countries, according to figures
cited by The Lancet paper.
It is authored by the Collaborative Group on
Epidemiological Studies of Ovarian Cancer, sponsored by the British charity Cancer
Research UK.
In the 1960s, doses of oestrogen in the pill were typically
double those of the 1980s, when the hormone formulation was slimmed down.
Even so, there was no apparent change in the relative risk of ovarian cancer among
women who used the pill in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
In an editorial,
The Lancet called for the pill to be made available over the counter, rather than
restricted by a doctor's prescription, given that, in its view, the benefits for
cancer prevention and reproductive health so outweighed the risks.
"We
believe the case is now convincing," the British journal said.
(Copyright
2008 by Times of India. All Rights Reserved.)
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