“Meningiomas are particularly delicate to progesterone,” Dr. D’Amico explains. “The Depo-Provera shot accommodates excessive doses of an artificial type of progesterone—medroxyprogesterone acetate—that stays within the physique for months at a time. In sufferers that have already got a tiny, asymptomatic meningioma, the concern is that long-term, repeated publicity to this hormone could ‘feed’ the tumor and encourage it to develop to a dimension the place it causes neurologic signs.”
Whereas there are a lot of types of contraception that use progestin, “no elevated meningioma threat has been discovered with mixed oral contraceptives, intrauterine units, progestin-only tablets, or subdermal implants,” Andre Beer Furlan, MD, PhD, a surgical oncologist in Moffitt Most cancers Heart’s Neuro-Oncology Division, tells SELF.
The info doesn’t show the shot causes meningioma, nevertheless it establishes a hyperlink.
Meningioma is extra frequent in ladies who’ve been via menopause, and there does appear to be a hormone tie-in, Clifford Segil, DO, a neurologist at Windfall Saint John’s Well being Heart in Santa Monica, California, tells SELF. With that, Dr. Segil says that it’s “not unreasonable” to imagine that there’s something about this type of contraception that will increase the danger of a mind tumor. However he stresses that this hyperlink continues to be being explored.
G. Thomas Ruiz, MD, an ob-gyn at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Heart in Fountain Valley, CA, additionally recommends decoding the hyperlink with warning. “The numbers of those meningiomas [in users] are so small,” he says.
Dr. D’Amico agrees. “It’s necessary to emphasize although that, even with this elevated relative threat, absolutely the threat for any particular person person continues to be low,” he says. For those who’ve used Depo-Provera previously, Dr. D’Amico says you’re doubtless effective. “As soon as the drug is out of the system, the excessive dose of the hormone is gone and not ‘feeds’ the tumor cells,” he says. “What issues in these sufferers is signs. For those who expertise persistent complications, imaginative and prescient adjustments, seizures, or new neurological issues, then it’s cheap to hunt medical analysis no matter contraceptive historical past.”