A study recently published has found that in vitro fertilization does not increase the likelihood of a woman getting endometrial or breast cancer.

The study, performed by the National Cancer Institute looked at the health records of 67,608 Israeli women who had IVF procedures between 1994 and 2011. They compared their health records with 19,795 women who had not undergone the treatments.

IVF treatments involve treating the female patient with hormones so that she can release more eggs than she usually does. These eggs are harvested by puncturing the ovaries and are combined in a laboratory with sperm in order to allow the egg to be fertilized. The fertilized egg is then implanted in the female patient.

By cross referencing the names of the women on the list with a registry of women who had been diagnosed with cancer, only 1,500 had cancer as of mid-2011.

But what was interesting is that the study found that the chance of ovarian cancer was increased in women who received multiple rounds of fertility treatment.

The cases of ovarian cancer totaled 45, but the authors said that they needed a larger sample size to fully assess if IVF treatments cause ovarian cancer.

The paper published in the journal Fertility and Sterility can be found here.