Many women believe that IVF drugs cause cancer, especially of the breast, and are reluctant to take them or even to undergo IVF treatment altogether.

The truth is that for many years there was this myth surrounding the drugs we use for ovarian stimulation in IVF. We have even met doctors who advised women not to use them.

THE IVF is a safe procedure, which aims to stimulate the ovaries in order to collect as many eggs as possible, fertilize them with sperm and create embryos, which after a few days of incubation we will transfer back to the mother’s uterus.

In practice, the drugs we use are the same as the hormones secreted by the brain every month to make the egg mature and ovulate, we just administer them in a larger amount in order to mature more eggs.

In the last 30 years, dozens of studies have been carried out on the safety of these drugs and especially on the possibility that a woman has to develop a cancer after taking them.

We have now safely concluded that there is no increased risk of cancer for women who undergo IVF with or without taking these drugs. These results, which have been known for several years, have begun to be embraced by doctors of other specialties, such as oncologists, who now lead women to IVF treatment to freeze eggs or embryos before chemotherapy.

In a few words, even in women who suffer from hormone-dependent breast cancer, we can, with protocols that have little difference from those we use in the daily practice of IVF, stimulate their ovaries, take eggs and freeze them in order to save the their fertility before the required chemotherapy that follows.

In addition, even women who have suffered from hormone-dependent breast cancer in the past can proceed with similar protocols in IVF treatment after a period of about two years, of course always with the consent of their oncologist.

So it becomes obvious that women should not hesitate to use the drugs, nor of course to ask to be treated with a natural cycle, i.e. without stimulation of the ovaries. If a woman has normal ovaries, which produce enough eggs, it is wrong to proceed with repeated treatments with a natural cycle, which are expensive and less effective and of course much more burdensome psychologically.

Natural cycle or modified natural cycle therapy should be recommended to women who have reduced ovarian function and cannot produce more eggs even when their ovaries are stimulated with IVF drugs.

Another question we often hear at the first IVF appointment is when women can repeat their treatment in order to “cleanse” their body of hormones. That’s not the case either.

IVF drugs have a limited half-life, which means they must be taken at very specific times each day, otherwise their blood levels, and thus their effectiveness, drop significantly.

Therefore, there is no minimum time that must pass in order to eliminate these drugs. We often recommend that patients wait between IVF treatments for better ovarian performance and not because of high blood levels of drugs or hormones. After all, we often use drugs again immediately after ovulation in order to collect eggs a second time within a month, especially in women who are soon to be operated on for malignancy.

With all of the above it becomes clear that women should not worry about their health due to the use of medicines. On the contrary, IVF is a safe procedure, which, when performed by experienced and trained Reproductive Gynecologists in specialized Assisted Reproductive Units, has excellent results and offers solutions and joy to the world of infertile couples.