The contraceptive pill should be made available over-the-counter, scientists have argued, after results from a British study revealed women taking the pill are protected from ovarian cancer.
An editorial in
The Lancet, said the case for allowing the pill to be available to women without a doctor’s prescription was now "convincing" given the evidence of cancer prevention.
"There are few drugs available that confer powerful and long-lasting protection against a highly lethal malignancy after such a short exposure. In translating the evidence from this large systematic review to individual women, oral contraceptives should now be made more widely available," it said.
"We strongly endorse more widespread over-the-counter access to a preventive agent that can not only prevent cancers but also demonstrably save the lives of tens of thousands of women."
The research, published in the journal last week, reviewed data from 45 studies covering more than 100,000 women.
Lead author Professor Valerie Beral, an Australian who is director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University, and her colleagues found evidence that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing the disease and that the risk remained low more than 30 years later, although the benefits diminished over time.
They believe the pill has prevented some 200,000 cases of ovarian cancer and 100,000 deaths from this disease since its introduction nearly half a century ago.
Professor Beral said that with more than 100 million women now on the pill the number of ovarian cancers prevented will rise over the next few decades to about 30,000 per year.