ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610140048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
SOURCE: Associated Press
Experts are divided over a new study reporting that a woman who has an abortion raises her risk of breast cancer by 30 percent.
The study released Friday, compiled from earlier research, blames abortion for some 5,000 cases of breast cancer each year. It appears in October's Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, a peer-reviewed journal of the British Medical Association.
``You do have to take it with caution,'' Vernon Chinchilli, one of the authors, said of the findings. ``But if these numbers are real, it is of concern.''
The researchers, from Pennsylvania State University's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Baruch College in New York City, collected information from 23 studies involving 25,967 women with breast cancer and 34,977 without, then reanalyzed the old data to find out how many had had abortions.
The practice of combining various epidemiological studies into a single study, known as meta-analysis, is used by disease trackers to reveal an effect too subtle to show up consistently in the individual studies. The results depend on the quality of each individual study and must account for their differing methods.
The individual studies on abortion and breast cancer have proven largely inconclusive, say other researchers and those at the National Cancer Institute. Some didn't take into account other factors related to breast cancer, including if and when a woman had children, and whether her family had a history of cancer.
Outside experts who reviewed the new work said it doesn't overcome the hurdles earlier researchers have faced.
``The study is invalid,'' Boston University Professor Lynn Rosenberg said. ``It means nothing.''
Joel Brind, a co-author of the latest study who writes for anti-abortion newsletters, maintains that the medical community wants women to continue to believe that abortion is as safe as childbirth, a reassurance that is ``crucial to the pro-choice movement.''
Researchers agree that a burst of hormones at the start of a pregnancy causes the breasts to grow. When a baby is carried to term, it is believed, another round of hormones turns the primitive cells into milk-producing cells.
That protects mothers from breast cancer, especially those who have children early. It is generally believed that women who have abortions lose that benefit. What experts don't know is whether an abortion adds risk.
Brind's theory is that when a pregnancy is interrupted, the excess cells remain undeveloped and are more likely to become cancerous.
Janet Daling, an epidemiologist at the Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, defended the paper as ``very objective and statistically beyond reproach.'' But she stressed that risks illustrated in the study were modest.
Daling's similar findings have also been heavily criticized, and she argued that the issue has become so politically charged that it isn't being examined objectively. She said that she herself favors abortion rights.
``If politically sensitive issues cannot be looked at in science with an open mind, then it is really going to set back our knowledge on the causes of cancer,'' she told The Wall Street Journal.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB