January 26, 2008     Exciting News!  

Oral Contraceptives Reduce Ovarian Cancers  

In the prestigious journal, The Lancet (Jan 26, 2008), a team of British scientist reported on a case control meta analysis and found, that the "use of oral contraceptives confers long-term protection against ovarian cancer. These findings suggest that oral contraceptives have already prevented some 200,000 ovarian cancers and 100,000 deaths from the disease, and that over the next few decades the number of cancers prevented will rise to at least 30,000 per year."  

"The longer that women had used oral contraceptives, the greater the reduction in ovarian cancer risk (p<0·0001). This reduction in risk persisted for more than 30 years after oral contraceptive use had ceased but became somewhat attenuated over time..."

Links to read more:   
               Web MD news article       Abstract, The Lancet.  

Oct 9, 2003:  Today's big cancer news. . .

An early release of information from a large national and international clinical trial which involved women with post-menopausal, estrogen-positive breast cancer who had taken tamoxifen for five years and were given an aromatase inhibitor, Letrozole, or placebo. (Placebo was appropriate in this instance since there is no other treatment offered women after tamoxifen.)  

The results are strikingly positive -- an overall 43% reduction in risk for those on the Letrozole. Side effects are generally "softer" than tamoxifen's but they are watching a small tendency for those on the drug to develop thinning bones. It is considered a generally safe drug. It is, obviously, premature to extrapolate this to possible implications for women with ovarian cancer -- but the NCI folks do think this may  have significance down the road for other solid-tumor cancers. Too soon, but worth watching.  

You can find the press release on this at the NCI's website:  http://cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/letrozole.