Will Birth Control Pills Increase My Chance of Getting Cancer?

Q.I took birth control pills for years. Will that increase my chance of getting cancer?

A. On the contrary, the pill has long been shown to decrease the risk of ovarian and uterine cancers. Moreover, the longer one takes the pill, the greater the preventive benefit.

While there’s been a ton of research, there is still not hard evidence regarding breast cancer. Dr. David Plourd of the Naval Medical Center in San Diego explains, “It appears that the risk of premenopausal breast cancer may be slightly increased, but postmenopausal risk might be decreased after the pill has been taken for a while. And that’s important to know, because most breast cancer is postmenopausal. … Women in their 60s and 70s are less likely to get breast cancer if they’ve been on the pill.”

It should be noted that the likelihood of one cancer, adenocarcinoma of the cervix, may rise slightly with use of the pill. But that’s a very rare cancer and even if the risk were to be multiplied several times it would still be minuscule.   In addition, vaccination with the quadrivalent HPV vaccine (Gardasil) has been proven to decrease the risk of adenocarcinoma of the cervix.

More Questions & Answers

• What can I do if I'm having trouble conceiving?
• Is there a male birth control pill?
• Is it true that you never get rid of herpes?