Athens University researchers have found that the risk of ovarian cancer fell by up to 30 per cent in women who used paracetamol regularly. The surprising results, reported in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, came from a large meta-study of more than 740,000 women over a six-year period. The new meta-study analyzed the findings from all previous studies carried out in the last forty years. "Meta-analysis involves doing a large amount of research into what has been published, summarizing the results and combining them using statistical methods" explained lead researcher Dr Stefanos Bonovas from the Greek Ministry of Health. "Analyzing a wide range of studies can often throw new light on a problem and raise new research questions. In this case our analysis of eight major studies - covering nearly three-quarters of a million women - revealed a strong correlation between paracetamol use and a reduced risk of ovarian cancer."
"Regular use," in this case, was defined as the highest frequency of drug use reported in the individual studies. This definition varied slightly between studies. In the largest study it was defined as more than 30 tablets in the month before the study started.
"Ovarian cancer remains the most fatal gynecological malignancy" said Dr Bonovas. "Because paracetamol is so widely used, a link with a decreased risk of ovarian cancer could have important public health implications." But paracetamol use can lead to other problems, which Bonovas was quick to warn about. "The risks of long-term paracetamol use - including liver and chronic kidney failure - may outweigh the potential benefits of preventing ovarian cancer in low-risk cases," he warned.
"We believe that a randomized trial in women with a high risk of developing the disease might be appropriate. We do feel that our study highlights the need for further research into this highly important link between a simple over-the-counter medicine and a very aggressive form of cancer," concluded Bonovas.
Source: British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
