Can Fertility Drugs Cause Ovarian Cancer?
Each year, more than 6 million couples in America cannot conceive a child. To improve their chance of becoming pregnant, millions of women turn to fertility drugs. Use of these drugs is known as artificial reproductive technology, or ART. Some studies suggest that these drugs may cause ovarian cancer. This seems to make some sense since one of the theories of why ovarian cancer develops is related to a long lifetime of ovulation. Fertility drugs are designed to cause the ovary to ovulate and often in multiple places during the cycle (which is why twins and other multiple births are higher when fertility drugs are used). That raises two important questions. What do the experts think about these studies? And, if you are a woman considering ART, what do you need to know?