Fertility drugs and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer in Italy.

The report of an increase of ovarian cancer risk among women who had used fertility drugs prompted us to analyse the relationship between fertility drugs and ovarian cancer in a case-control study which has been ongoing in four areas of Italy since 1992. The present analysis is based on 195 epithelial ovarian cancer cases and 1339 controls admitted to hospital for diseases other than gynaecological or malignant conditions. Fewer ovarian cancer cases than controls reported use of fertility drugs (odds ratio, after allowance for potential confounding factors: 0.7, 95% confidence interval: 0.2-3.3). Among nulligravid women, 5/177 control women compared with 0/36 cancer cases reported having ever used fertility drugs. Although only based on small numbers of women who were suffering from ovarian cancer and who had also used fertility drugs, the present study indicated that a role of ovarian stimulation in the aetiology of epithelial ovarian cancer is not established, although it is worth investigating.