Oral contraceptives and ovarian cancer.

Cramer et al. reported the results of a case control study of ovarian cancer in women under age 60, indicating that oral contraceptive (OC) use was associated with a decreased risk of the disease. Yet, according to Cramer et al. the decreased risk was evident only in women over age 40 and that below this age OC use was actually associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer. As other workers had not broken down the data in this manner, Cramer et al. were unable to compare this result with the results from other studies. This group of researchers has reanalyzed their data to allow such a comparison. In contrast to the results of Cramer et al. it was found that only in the young cases was their any possible negative association between OC use and ovarian cancer. The data for both women under and over 40 showed a steady decrease in ovarian cancer with increasing duration of OC use.