One concern that has been raised in the past about fertility drugs has been that they were thought to increase the change of developing ovarian cancer later in life. Now there is another piece of evidence that agrees with most recent studies that there is no link.
A study reported in the British Medical Journal evaluated the effects of fertility drugs in 52,362 women being treated for infertility in Danish fertility clinics and hospitals between 1962 and 1998. They looked at four groups of fertility drugs (gonadotropins like Bravelle, Follistim and Gonal-F), clomiphene citrate (Clomid), human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and gonadotropin-releasing hormone). There was no overall increase in ovarian cancer with use of any of the groups analyzed.
Women who carry the BCRA-1 and BCRA-2 genes may be predisposed to both infertility and ovarian cancer, but this increased risk is not based on using fertility drugs.
