Abstract
Background
There is concern that assisted reproductive technology (ART) may increase ovarian cancer risk, but previous studies are inconclusive. We compared ovarian cancer risk for women who gave birth after ART vs natural conception.
Methods
Through linkage of nationwide registry data, we followed 3,303,880 initially nulliparous women in Denmark (1994–2014), Finland (1990–2014), Norway (1984–2015) and Sweden (1985–2015) from first pregnancy ≥22 weeks to ovarian cancer, emigration, death or end of follow-up (2014/2015). We estimated hazard ratios (HRs), adjusting for age, parity, maternal birth year and country, and for body mass index and smoking in subsamples.
Results
Mean age at first birth was 27.7 years. During a mean follow-up of 14.4 person-years, 2683 participants (0.08%) developed ovarian cancer; 135 after ART and 2548 after natural conception only (incidence rates 11.6 and 5.5 per 100,000 person-years, respectively). The risk was higher for women who ever gave birth after ART (HR 1.70, 95% confidence interval 1.42–2.03) compared to natural conception. Associations were stronger for conventional in vitro fertilisation than for intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Conclusions
Among parous women, ART-conception was associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer than natural conception. Further studies should decipher whether this is causal or confounded by infertility or other factors.
Subject terms: Risk factors, Ovarian cancer
Introduction
Ovarian cancer is the seventh most common cancer among women and has five-years survival rates below 45% [1]. The hormonal aetiology of ovarian cancer has led to concerns about whether assisted reproductive technology (ART) increases risk in women treated for infertility [2]. ART treatment involves several potentially carcinogenic exposures, such as supraphysiological levels of estradiol and exogenous gonadotropins, as well as multiple ovarian punctures [3]. Following the first reports from the early 1990s on the higher risk of ovarian cancer in women treated with fertility drugs [4, 5], results have been diverging [6–14], and a systematic review from 2019 concluded that the heterogeneity between studies was too pronounced to conduct a meta-analysis [15]. This heterogeneity may result from differences in comparison groups (e.g. untreated infertile women, the general population, and naturally conceiving women), treatment (e.g. different stimulation regimens, ovulation induction with or without ART), and duration of follow-up, but also from random error since the number of ART-exposed cases in most studies were very small. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis included data from nineteen studies, with a total of 370 ovarian cancers in ART-exposed women (range 1–66 in individual studies), found no association with fertility treatment [16]. Furthermore, previous reports suggest that infertility itself is associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer [17–19], and that risk may differ according to the cause of infertility [17], also in women who give birth after ART [12, 20].
Over the last decades, the use of ART has increased steadily [21]. Only in Europe, more than 1 million ART cycles, resulting in more than 215,000 children, are performed each year [21]. In the Nordic countries, the availability and use of ART treatment is among the highest in Europe, and 3–6% of recent birth cohorts were conceived using ART [21].
Considering the increasing use of ART, the poor prognosis of ovarian cancer, and the inconsistency of previous results, we conducted a population-based cohort study including all parous women in four Nordic countries, with detailed baseline and follow-up information from nationwide registries, to assess whether giving birth after ART is associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer than giving birth after natural conception (NC).
Methods
Data sources and study factors
The Committee of Nordic ART and Safety (CoNARTaS) study population includes all women who gave birth after ART and NC from Denmark (1994–2014), Finland (1990–2014), Norway (1984–2015) and Sweden (1985–2015). Data were obtained from each country’s national ART registry or database, linked with data from the respective Medical Birth Registry (MBR), and pooled into a Nordic cohort, described in detail previously and shown in Supplementary Table 1 [22, 23]. Because the Medical Birth Registries were used to define the study population, women who never gave birth were not included. The national identity number assigned to all residents in each Nordic country enabled follow-up through linkage at an individual level to data from the National Cancer Registries, National Patient Registries, Cause of Death Registries and Population Registries.
We considered deliveries without registration of ART conception to result from NC. ART was classified as fertilisation by either conventional in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), with either fresh or frozen embryo transfer. Ovulation induction and intrauterine inseminations were not considered ART treatment. In contrast to other European countries, ICSI is mainly reserved for couples with a male component cause of infertility in the Nordic countries [22, 24]. Fertilisation with both IVF and ICSI in the same cycle was categorised as IVF since we assumed male factor to be less pronounced in these couples. Fertilisation with non-ejaculated sperm was categorised as ICSI. Details on specific ART treatments were not available from Finland.
Causes of infertility were recorded in the ART registries in Norway and Denmark, whereas in Sweden, information on diagnoses associated with infertility was extracted from the national patient registry. Relevant International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes were ICD-10, N46; N80; N97; E28.2, ICD-9, 256.4; 606; 617; 628, ICD-8, 606; 628. All participants who gave birth after ART and had no recorded cause of infertility were classified as having ‘unknown’ cause of infertility. No information on the cause of infertility was available from Finland. We categorised causes of infertility as (a) female factor only, including endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome or anovulation, tubal, cervical or uterine factors; (b) male factor only; (c) mixed female and male factors, if any of the female factors and male factor were recorded; (d) unexplained infertility if no cause of infertility was found after the medical assessment; and (e) ‘other or unknown factors’ if specific causes not included in (a) or (b) were recorded (e.g. same sex couples), if no results from medical assessment were reported or if no diagnostic work-up had been performed.
The MBRs collect data on all deliveries that take place in the respective countries, both live births and stillbirths. For Denmark and Sweden, stillbirths <28 weeks were included from 2004 and 2008, respectively. The MBRs provided information on maternal age (years), year and month of delivery, parity, and gestational age at delivery (days). For subsamples, we also had data on smoking in pregnancy, harmonised across the countries as ‘any smoking during pregnancy’ versus ‘no smoking during pregnancy’, height and pre-pregnancy or first-trimester weight.
For all participants, data on all cancer diagnoses were available from the establishment of the national cancer registries (1943 in Denmark, 1953 in Finland and Norway and 1958 in Sweden). We defined ovarian cancer according to the ICD-10 codes used by the NORDCAN project (C56 (malignant neoplasm of ovary) and C57.0–4 (malignant neoplasm of fallopian tube, broad ligament, round ligament, parametrium and uterine adnexa, unspecified)) [25], a collaboration between the Nordic cancer registries which allows comparison of cancer occurrence between the Nordic countries over time. Data on borderline ovarian tumours were not available in the data linkages. Information on the date and cause of death was obtained from the National Cause of Death Registries, whereas data on emigration were obtained from national Population Registries. Data on emigration were not available from Finland. Deaths from ovarian cancer without a preceding registration of ovarian cancer in the cancer registries were also considered as events.
Study population and follow-up
All participants were followed from the conception of their first pregnancy with delivery in gestational week 22 or later. The date of conception was estimated by subtracting the gestational age at delivery from the date of birth. If gestational age was missing or registered as >340 days, we used the mean duration of pregnancy (282 days) [26]. We chose the conception date as the start of follow-up to allow the inclusion of cancers diagnosed during a pregnancy resulting in delivery since these could, in theory, be initiated or promoted by controlled ovarian stimulation in ART.
We followed participants until the date of any first cancer diagnosis (except non-melanoma skin cancer), emigration, death, or December 31, 2014 (Finland and Denmark) or December 31, 2015 (Norway and Sweden), whichever occurred first. Cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed within two months (62 days) after the woman’s first cancer diagnosis, were not censored at the date of first cancer diagnosis, but included as ovarian cancer cases, as the disease was likely present at the date of diagnosis of first cancer. All women who had their first delivery during the study period were eligible (n = 3,319,187). We excluded women with a cancer diagnosis before the conception of their first child (n = 15,479). These women more often had at least one ART-conceived pregnancy than those included in the study (6.7% vs 3.1%). Further, we excluded women with a period of emigration before their first birth (n = 314), and participants with an unreliable date of birth or death (n = 14), resulting in a final study population of 3,303,380 women (Fig. 1). Of these, 2,193,684 had information on BMI and 2,166,347 had information on both BMI and smoking.
Fig. 1.
Study population and analysis samples.
Parts of the study population were included in previous national studies from Denmark [20], Norway [13], and Sweden [11].
Statistical analysis
We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with confidence intervals (CIs). We used attained age as the time scale and treated ART-conception as a time-dependent exposure, considering women as exposed from their first ART conception resulting in delivery. Time-dependent exposure was used to ensure correctly allocated person-time and avoid ‘immortal time bias’ [27]. Unsuccessful ART cycles and pregnancies resulting in miscarriages were included neither in the ART group nor in the NC group. We adjusted for parity (time-dependent), age at first birth, mother’s year of birth in 5-year birth cohorts, and country. Missing values were handled through complete case analysis. We also adjusted for BMI and smoking in a subsample of women with available information, starting follow-up at the first recorded data. For BMI, the most recently available registration was used (time-dependent), whereas, for smoking, we expected the status to vary more between pregnancies, and included only pregnancies with non-missing smoking status. Due to a large proportion of missing data on these variables (32%), statistical power was not sufficient to adjust for them in subgroup analyses. In a sensitivity analysis, we repeated the models above after excluding the first year of follow-up to examine if the associations were influenced by cancers diagnosed shortly after treatment.
We used several complementary approaches to assess whether a higher level of exposure was associated with higher risk. First, we estimated risk according to combinations of conception methods for women with two or more deliveries, comparing women with two ART-conceived pregnancies, as well as both ART and natural conception, to women with two naturally conceived pregnancies. In these analyses, women were followed from their second pregnancy. Second, we assessed risk according to the number of pregnancies for women with natural or ART conceptions separately, starting follow-up at the first conception and censoring whenever a pregnancy with the other method was conceived. Third, we assessed the risk associated with pregnancies by fresh embryo transfer only, censoring when a pregnancy with frozen embryo transfer was conceived, to ensure that each additional pregnancy represented a new ovarian stimulation.
We estimated cumulative incidence using a competing risk approach, treating other cancers, death and emigration as competing outcomes. In these analyses, we selected a subsample using a matched cohort design due to limited computational capacity. For each ART-conceiving mother, we selected five naturally conceiving mothers with the same year of birth, age at first birth, country of residence and parity.
The proportional hazards assumption was tested with Schoenfeld residuals and by inspection of log-log plots, and there were no clear violations.
All analyses were performed in Stata, version 15.
Results
The cohort included 3,303,380 women who were nulliparous at the start of follow-up and had 6,605,024 deliveries during follow-up. Of these, 119,437 women (3.6%) gave birth after ART at least once during the study period, and 3,183,943 women gave birth after natural conception only (Table 1). The number of women who gave birth after ART increased throughout the study period. ART-mothers were followed for a mean of 9.7 years (standard deviation, SD, 6.8), while naturally conceiving mothers were followed for a mean of 14.5 years (SD 8.6). The mean age at first birth was 32.4 (SD 4.8) years in ART-mothers and 27.5 (SD 4.9) years in naturally conceiving mothers. The mean age at diagnosis of ovarian cancer was 43.0 years (SD 6.8) for ART-mothers, and 42.3 years (SD 9.0) for naturally conceiving mothers. The mean age at the end of the follow-up was 41.4 (SD 9.0) years.
Table 1.
Characteristics of study cohort of 3,303,380 parous women from the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 1984–2015 according to mode of conception.
| Women registered with ART-conceptiona | Women registered with natural conception only | All participants | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participants | 119,437 | 3,183,943 | 3,303,380 |
| Participants with ovarian cancerb | 135 | 2548 | 2683 |
| Follow-up, person years, mean (SD) | 9.7 (6.8) | 14.5 (8.6) | 14.4 (8.6) |
| Age at first birth, mean (SD) | 32.4 (4.8) | 27.5 (4.9) | 27.7 (5.0) |
| Age at first birth, categories, n (%) | |||
| <25 | 6564 (6) | 899,146 (28) | 905,710 (27) |
| 25–29 | 24,610 (21) | 1,235,430 (39) | 1,260,040 (38) |
| 30–34 | 48,607 (41) | 776,135 (24) | 824,742 (25) |
| 35–39 | 32,124 (27) | 229,254 (7) | 261,378 (8) |
| ≥40 | 7532 (6) | 43,978 (1) | 51,510 (2) |
| Parity at start of follow-up | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Parity at end of follow-up, n (%) | |||
| One | 57,004 (48) | 915,589 (29) | 972,593 (29) |
| Two | 47,592 (40) | 1,509,113 (47) | 1,556,705 (47) |
| Three | 11,970 (10) | 581,527 (18) | 593,497 (18) |
| Four or more | 2871 (2) | 177,714 (6) | 180,585 (5) |
| Country and study period, n (%) | |||
| Denmark 1994–2014 | 29,559 (25) | 541,493 (17) | 571,052 (17) |
| Finland 1990–2014 | 20,665 (17) | 576,925 (18) | 597,590 (18) |
| Norway 1984–2015 | 23,194 (19) | 746,652 (23) | 769,846 (23) |
| Sweden 1985–2015 | 46,019 (39) | 1,318,873 (41) | 1,364,892 (41) |
a18,793 of the ART-conceiving women also contributed person-time in the natural conception group, as they had one or more deliveries from natural conception before their first delivery after ART.
b53 of cases were diagnosed with ovarian cancer within 62 days of their first cancer diagnosis: 4 ART-conceiving mothers and 49 naturally conceiving mothers.
During >47 million person-years of follow-up, 2683 participants (0.08%) were diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Of these, 135 were ART-mothers, giving an incidence rate of 11.6/100,000 person-years (95% CI 9.8–13.7), whereas 2548 had naturally conceived children only (incidence rate 5.5/100,000 person-years, 95% CI 5.3–5.7). Throughout follow-up, unadjusted hazard rates according to time since first birth were higher for ART-conceiving compared to naturally conceiving mothers (Fig. 2), and proportionality testing indicated no clear variation in association during follow-up. Results also remained similar after excluding the first year of follow-up (92 cases excluded, Supplementary Table 2). Consistent with these observations, the cumulative risk of ovarian cancer was higher in ART-conceiving mothers throughout the entire follow-up period (Fig. 3).
Fig. 2.
Ever ART and risk of ovarian cancer.
Fig. 3.
ART and cumulative risk of ovarian cancer.
Overall, the risk of ovarian cancer was higher for ART-conceiving than for naturally conceiving mothers (HR 1.70 95% CI 1.42–2.03) after adjustment for attained age, mothers 5-year birth cohort, age at first birth, parity and country (Table 2). The estimates were somewhat higher in sub-populations with information about BMI and smoking, but the estimates did not change substantially when adjusting for these factors (HR 1.95, 95% CI 1.49–2.55).
Table 2.
Risk of ovarian cancer among 3,303,380 parous women from the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 1984–2015.
| Analysis sample | Mode of conception | Cases/participants | Age-adjusted HR (95% CI)a | Full model HR (95% CI)b |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full sampleb | Natural conception | 2546/3,202,736 | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 135/119,390 | 1.75 (1.47–2.08) | 1.70 (1.42–2.03)c | |
| BMId | Natural conception | 1050/2,116,692 | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 63/85,559 | 1.97 (1.53–2.54) | 1.93 (1.48–2.51)e | |
| Smoking and BMIf | Natural conception | 1012/2,090,238 | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 61/84,196 | 1.97 (1.52–2.56) | 1.95 (1.49–2.55)g |
ART assisted reproductive technology, BMI body mass index, CI confidence interval, HR hazard ratio.
aAdjusted for attained age.
bParticipants with information about age, parity and age at first birth. Eighteen thousand seven hundred ninety-three of the ART-conceiving women had one or more deliveries after natural conception before their first delivery after ART, and therefore, they also contributed person-time in the natural conception group up to their first ART conception resulting in delivery.
cAdjusted for attained age, mothers 5-year birth cohort, age at first birth, parity and country.
dParticipants with information about age, parity, age at first birth and body mass index. Followed from the conception of the first pregnancy where pre-pregnancy or first-trimester body mass index was recorded.
eAdjusted for attained age, mothers 5-year birth cohort, age at first birth, parity, country and body mass index.
fParticipants with information about age, parity, age at first birth, body mass index and smoking status (any smoking in pregnancy). Followed from the conception of the first pregnancy where pre-pregnant body mass index and smoking status was recorded.
gAdjusted for attained age, mothers 5-year birth cohort, age at first birth, parity, country, body mass index and smoking status.
Country-specific analyses were largely comparable with the pooled results (Table 3). Women with two or more deliveries were at higher risk of ovarian cancer if at least one of their first two deliveries were after ART, as compared to women whose two first deliveries were after NC (Table 3). The risk was somewhat higher for women whose two first deliveries were after ART than in women with one delivery after NC and one after ART. In analyses of the fertilisation method, IVF was associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer (HR 2.05, 95% CI 1.60–2.64) compared to naturally conceiving mothers, whereas the association with ICSI was weaker and less clear (HR 1.44, 95% CI 0.93–2.22). When restricting ART-conception to fresh transfers, age-adjusted estimates were higher (HR 2.80, 95% CI 2.26–3.48), but fully adjusted estimates were similar to those from the main sample (HR 1.85, 95% CI 1.49–2.31).
Table 3.
Risk of ovarian cancer among 3,303,380 parous women from the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 1984–2015, according to country of residence and fertility history in their two first pregnancies.
| Casesa | Participantsa,f | Incidence rateb,c | Age-adjusted HR (95% CI)a,d | Full model HR (95% CI)e | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mode of conception by country | |||||
| Denmark | |||||
| Natural conception | 204 | 545,564 | 3.4 (3.0–3.9) | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 24 | 29,537 | 8.9 (6.0–13.3) | 1.69 (1.10–2.60) | 1.69 (1.09–2.63) |
| Finland | |||||
| Natural conception | 622 | 580,601 | 8.2 (7.5–8.8) | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 35 | 20,638 | 16.2 (11.6–22.5) | 1.57 (1.11–2.21) | 1.62 (1.14–2.29) |
| Norway | |||||
| Natural conception | 698 | 751,226 | 5.7 (5.3–6.2) | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 23 | 23,194 | 10.0 (6.6–15.0) | 1.46 (0.96–2.21) | 1.40 (0.92–2.14) |
| Sweden | |||||
| Natural conception | 1022 | 1,325,345 | 5.0 (4.7–5.3) | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| ART | 53 | 46,019 | 11.9 (9.1–15.5) | 2.02 (1.53–2.67) | 2.12 (1.59–2.83) |
| Fertility history, first two pregnanciesg | |||||
| Two natural conceptions | 1557 | 2,261,392 | 5.2 (5.0–5.5) | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| First natural, then ART conception | 16 | 15,884 | 11.3 (7.0–18.5) | 1.94 (1.19–3.18) | 1.92 (1.17–3.14) |
| First ART, then natural conception | 24 | 23,965 | 11.7 (7.8–17.5) | 2.06 (1.38–3.09) | 2.32 (1.54–3.50) |
| Two ART conceptions | 22 | 19,521 | 14.4 (9.5–21.9) | 2.46 (1.62–3.75) | 2.66 (1.73–4.07) |
| ART fertilisation methodc,h,i,j | |||||
| Natural conception | 1924 | 2,621,425 | 5.0 (4.7–5.2) | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| IVF | 67 | 58,741 | 14.3 (11.3–18.2) | 2.20 (1.72–2.80) | 2.05 (1.60–2.64) |
| ICSI | 21 | 36,808 | 6.6 (4.3–10.1) | 1.34 (0.87–2.06) | 1.44 (0.93–2.22) |
| Fresh embryo transferk | 87 | 80,280 | 10.9 (8.8–13.4) | 2.80 (2.26–3.48) | 1.85 (1.49–2.31) |
ART assisted reproductive technology, CI confidence interval, HR hazard ratio, ICSI intracytoplasmic sperm injection, IVF in vitro fertilisation, NC natural conception.
aParticipants with information about age, parity and age at first birth.
bPer 100,000 person-years.
cData on emigration and ART method is not available from Finland.
dAdjusted for attained age.
eAdjusted for attained age, mother’s 5-year birth cohort, age at first birth, parity and country.
fNumbers do not add up (Participants NC + Participants ART ≠ Participants all) because some ART women are also counted as NC if they have at least one NC conception before their first ART conception.
gFollow-up from the conception of the second pregnancy.
hCompared to women with natural conceptions (not other ART-conceiving mothers).
iWomen with children after first IVF and then ICSI contributes with person-time in the IVF group until conception with ICSI, whereas women with first ICSI and then IVF contributes with person-time in the ICSI group only.
jConceptions with both IVF and ICSI were categorised as IVF, whereas conceptions using non-ejaculated sperm and ICSI were categorised as ICSI.
kCensoring when a pregnancy with frozen embryo transfer was conceived.
Among women with deliveries only after natural conception, giving birth two or three times was associated with a lower risk of ovarian cancer as compared to giving birth once (Table 4), but additional pregnancies beyond three was not associated with a further decline in risk. For women with ART-conception in their first pregnancy, giving birth to at least one more child after ART, was not associated with a different risk of ovarian cancer compared to those with one delivery only (HR 1.26, 95% CI 0.75–2.12). Among women with only one conception, ART was associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer as compared to NC conception (HR 1.33, 95% CI 1.04–1.70) (Table 4).
Table 4.
Risk of ovarian cancer according to parity among 3,277,309 parous women with deliveries after either natural conception or ART from the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 1984–2015.
| Natural conception | ART | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parity | Cases/ participantsa | Age-adjusted HR (95% CI)b | Full model HR (95% CI)c | Cases/ participantsa | Age-adjusted HR (95% CI)b | Full model HR (95% CI)c |
| 1st pregnancy | 991/3,185,827 | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) | 71/76,495 | 1.22 (0.95–1.55) | 1.33 (1.04–1.70) |
| 1st pregnancy | 991/3,185,827 | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) | 71/76,495 | 1 (Ref.) | 1 (Ref.) |
| 2nd pregnancy | 1111/2,231,542 | 0.69 (0.63–0.75) | 0.64 (0.58–0.70) | 20/18,512 | 1.23 (0.74–2.02) | 1.26 (0.75–2.12) |
| 3rd pregnancy | 343/737,296 | 0.56 (0.50–0.64) | 0.50 (0.43–0.57) | |||
| 4th pregnancy | 80/171,401 | 0.64 (0.51–0.80) | 0.54 (0.43–0.69) | |||
| 5th and later pregnancies | 21/74,646 | 0.57 (0.37–0.87) | 0.47 (0.30–0.73) | |||
| P for trend | <0.001 | <0.001 | 0.42 | 0.39 | ||
aParticipants with information about age, parity and age at first birth. Women with additional deliveries beyond the first, with the same conception method as in the first, will be included in more than one category/cell.
bAdjusted for attained age.
cAdjusted for attained age, mothers 5-year birth cohort, age at first birth, parity and country.
The analysis sample for causes of infertility comprised 98,750 women with deliveries after ART (Supplementary Table 3). Causes of infertility were characterised as female factors (endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome/anovulation, tubal, cervical or uterine factors) in 21,293 (16%), male factor alone in 15,840 (13%), mixed female and male factors in 12,831 (13%), unexplained infertility in 11,339 (12%) and other factors (including unknown) in 37,404 (38%). ART-conceiving mothers in all categories were at higher risk of ovarian cancer as compared to naturally conceiving mothers, but precision was low due to few cases in each category (Supplementary Table 3). Among women with the female causes of infertility, endometriosis was associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer as compared to naturally conceiving mothers than were other female causes of infertility (Supplementary Table 3). The distribution of registered causes of infertility differed substantially between countries, especially due to a large proportion of unknown or “other cause of infertility” in Sweden (Supplementary Table 4). In addition, the distribution of causes of infertility in our study differed from those of two large, similar studies [12, 20], as shown in Supplementary Table 4.
Discussion
In this large registry-based cohort study of all parous women in four Nordic countries across almost three decades, we found that delivery after ART was associated with 70% higher risk of ovarian cancer than delivery after natural conception. However, the absolute risk of ovarian cancer was small (0.08% during a mean follow-up of 14.4 years). Adjusting for BMI and smoking did not substantially change the results. The association was stronger for women treated with IVF compared with ICSI fertilisation, and somewhat stronger after two ART-conceived pregnancies compared with both ART and natural conception in their first two pregnancies.
Our results correspond reasonably well with results from a British cohort, the largest study to date on the association between ART and risk of invasive ovarian tumours (standardised incidence ratio (SIR) 1.40, 95% CI 1.24–1.53) [12]. However, those results were not adjusted for age at first birth and parity but compared to standardised incidence rates (SIRs) in the general population. Also, similar estimates were reported in a meta-analysis [16] and a recent, large Dutch study [28], when comparing risk in ART-treated women as compared to the general population (relative risk (RR) 1.50, 95% CI 1.17–1.92, and SIR 1.43, 95% CI 1.18–1.71, respectively). However, in the Dutch study, parous women were not at higher risk of ovarian cancer as compared to women from the general population (SIR 1.10, 95% CI 0.83–1.43), in contrast to our results. However, all the nine included studies in the meta-analysis were small, with a total of 76 exposed cases, whereas the Dutch study included 115 ovarian cancer cases exposed to ART, of which 54 were parous women.
Furthermore, infertility itself seems to be associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer, with associations of comparable magnitude to the associations for ART treatment from this study and other studies [17, 18, 29]. Interestingly, the meta-analysis and the Dutch study mentioned above found no clear associations between ART treatment and the risk of ovarian cancer when the comparison group was other infertile or subfertile women [28, 30]. Consistent with these observations, several studies indicate stronger associations between ART treatment and ovarian cancer among women treated for female factor infertility, especially endometriosis, than other causes of infertility [12, 20, 31]. Thus, it may be hypothesised that the higher risk of ovarian cancer after ART treatment might be due to underlying infertility rather than the ART procedures. Our finding of a weaker association in mothers who conceived after ICSI, an indicator of the male component cause of infertility in the Nordic countries [23, 24], compared to mothers who conceived after IVF, as well as the suggestive stronger association in mothers with endometriosis registered as the cause of infertility, compared to women with natural conception, is compatible with this hypothesis. However, we cannot rule out that mothers who conceived after ICSI may also have been exposed to fewer ART cycles, and women with endometriosis to more ART cycles, and precision was limited compared to the main analyses.
A major strength of the CoNARTaS data is the large sample size, with the inclusion of all women who gave birth during the entire registration period of ART treatment in the Nordic countries. The linkage to national cancer and population registries offers essentially complete and long-term follow-up [32]. The linkage to the national birth registries allows for adjustment for age at first birth and parity, and for BMI and smoking in a subset of participants, in contrast to studies that compare incidence rates in treated patients with standardised incidence rates only [7, 8, 12, 33]. The prospective data collection and population-based design reduce the risk of non-differential misclassification and selection.
A major limitation is that we had no information about women who did not give birth (regardless of the reason) and no information on ART cycles that did not result in delivery. Previous studies show a higher risk of ovarian cancer in women who remain nulliparous after ART, compared to untreated nulliparous women and the general population [12, 14, 28]. However, based on cumulative success rates from Denmark [34], we estimate that on a Nordic level, about 80,000 women would remain nulliparous after ART treatment and therefore not be included and that around 0.8% of the naturally conceiving mothers may have had unsuccessful ART treatment at some point (Supplementary Material). Similarly, although we had no data on reproductive tourism and most pregnancies conceived after ART abroad would be registered as NC, we expect that they comprise a very small proportion of our reference group.
Despite the large cohort size, the number of ovarian cancer cases was still relatively small, because the proportion of women who gave birth after ART was small, and they are still relatively young. The median age at diagnosis in our study was only 42 years, compared to 64 years in the general population [35] (data from Denmark only). The follow-up to older age ranges will be possible in the future and is needed to assess if ART is associated with risk during typical onset ages. Differences in registration practice between the countries, combined with a high number of couples with unknown causes of infertility, limited our ability to directly take underlying infertility into account. The cause and severity of infertility may also influence the total number of ART cycles needed, the stimulation regimens and their responses, neither of which were available. In consequence, residual confounding from infertility cannot be excluded. We had no information on oral contraceptive use, which may confound our results because it is associated with a lower risk of ovarian cancer [36] and may differ according to fertility status. Also, we had no information about ethnicity or socio-economic status. However, ART treatment is highly subsidised in the public health care systems in the Nordic countries, and treatment decision is therefore primarily based on medical indications rather than the couple’s financial situation.
Unfortunately, we had no information on borderline tumours or the different histotypes, for which risk factors may differ [19]. For example, endometriosis is more strongly associated and may share a genetic basis with the clear-cell, endometroid and high-grade serous histotypes [37]. However, given the relatively low total number of ovarian cancer cases, we would have had little power to assess associations with the different histological types, had data been available. We also had no information about familial risk, for instance, BRCA1 and 2 mutations, which account for 10–15% of all ovarian cancer [19].
To conclude, in this large registry-based cohort study of all parous women in four Nordic countries across almost three decades, we found that delivery after ART was associated with a higher risk of ovarian cancer than delivery after natural conception. However, further studies should try to decipher whether this is due to the ART treatment, underlying infertility, confounding by other factors such as less use of oral contraceptive use, or a combination.
Supplementary information
Acknowledgements
We thank the staff in Nordic fertility clinics and hospitals for taking time to complete the registry notifications in their busy working day. The details and completeness of their work provide a solid foundation for our study.
Author contributions
AP, MG, CB, LBR, AT, UBW, AKH and SO conceived and designed the work that led to the submission and acquired the data. MSS and SO performed the statistical analyses. MSS drafted the manuscript. All authors played an important role in interpreting the results and revision of the manuscript, approved the final version and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Funding
The project was supported by a grant from the Norwegian Cancer Society [grant number 182356–2016]. The establishment of the CoNARTaS cohort has additionally been supported by the Nordic Trial Alliance: a pilot project jointly funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers and NordForsk [grant number 71450], the Central Norway Regional Health Authorities [grant number 46045000], the Nordic Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology [grant numbers NF13041, NF15058, NF16026 and NF17043], the Interreg Öresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak European Regional Development Fund (ReproUnion project).
Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study were used under license for the current study and are not publicly available. Restrictions apply to data availability, but data may be accessed through Statistics Denmark upon reasonable request to the authors and with permission from the relevant authorities, ethics committees and Statistics Denmark.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
This study was approved by the registry-keeping authorities in each country. Permission was granted from the regional ethics committees in Norway (REC North 2010/1909) and Sweden (Dnr 214-12, T422-12, T516-15, T233-16, T300-17, T1144-17, T121-18, T1071-18, T2019 02347). In Denmark and Finland, study-specific ethical approval is not required when using national registry data for research purposes.
Consent for publication
Non applicable.
Footnotes
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41416-022-02097-7.
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Supplementary Materials
Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study were used under license for the current study and are not publicly available. Restrictions apply to data availability, but data may be accessed through Statistics Denmark upon reasonable request to the authors and with permission from the relevant authorities, ethics committees and Statistics Denmark.