Breast cancer in women who have taken contraceptive steroids.

The prognosis and clinical and pathological findings in 93 patients with breast cancer who had taken contraceptive steroids before diagnosis (study group) were compared with those in 93 control patients, also with breast cancer, matched for age and parity. The tumours in the women in the study group were found to have more favourable clinical and histological features than those in the control group. When only patients who had been treated by radical mastectomy were considered, those who had taken contraceptive steroids survived significantly longer even when differences in nodal state were taken into account. Significantly more patients in the study group had a family history of breast cancer. No evidence was found that taken oral contraceptive steroids had any harmful effect on tumour growth and spread, except possibly in patients with a close family history of breast cancer.