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Published on: February 6, 2015
Cancer risk among women sterilized with transcervical quinacrine in Chile: an update through 1996
D C Sokal1, A Dabancens, R Guzman-Serani
1Family Health International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA.
Objective:
To determine whether further follow-up of a cohort of Chilean women would demonstrate an increased risk of invasive cancer associated with quinacrine sterilization.
Design:
Cohort study. Cancer cases were evaluated using cohort analyses.
Setting:
Santiago and Valdivia, Chile.
Subject(S):
Fourteen hundred ninety-two women who received transcervical quinacrine pellets for contraceptive sterilization between 1977 and 1989.
Method(S):
Interviews and reviews of medical records.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Age- and site-specific incidence of invasive cancers.
Result(S):
During 13,444 person-years of follow-up, 25 invasive cancers were identified, including 8 new cases. This compares with 21.9 expected cancers, based on age-specific rates from the Cali, Colombia, cancer registry. Eight cases of cervical cancer were observed, compared with the 6.3 expected. Since the initial study's confirmation of a single case of leiomyosarcoma, no other noncervical uterine cancers have been diagnosed. The number of observed person-years gives an expectation of 0.62 noncervical uterine cancers. One case of ovarian cancer was diagnosed, compared with the 0.99 expected.
Conclusion(S):
Rates of cancer among women exposed to intrauterine quinacrine are not significantly different from population-based rates.
