Taking a contraceptive birth control pill for more than five years doubles a patient's risk for a brain tumor, according to a new study.
A team of researchers looked at 317 women who had been diagnosed with glioma between 2000 and 2009 for the study, reported Telegraph. After interviewing the patients, they found that women who use progestogen-only methods of contraception the risk of a brain tumor was 2.4 times higher than the control group.
Other hormonal contraception methods - such as patches, injections and implants - posed a raised risk for brain tumors, though the risk wasn't as high.
"It is important to keep this apparent increase in risk in context," Dr. David Gaist of the Odense University Hospital and University of Southern Denmark, who led the study, told Telegraph. "In a population of women in the reproductive age, including those who use hormonal contraceptives, you would anticipate seeing 5 in 100,000 people develop a glioma annually."
Giloma tumors represent 30 percent of all brain tumors and 80 percent of all malignant tumors, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.
The researchers hope their findings will spark further research on the relationship between female hormonal agents and glioma risk, reported Telegraph.
The study was published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.