‘Charmed’ Star Shannen Doherty’s Heartbreaking Claims About Her Cancer Are Painful to Hear But Research Proves Otherwise
- Shannen Doherty passed away at 53 from breast cancer.
- She had always dreamed of having children, even while battling her illness.
- The actress believed that her IVF treatment could have been the cause of her cancer.
Actress Shannen Doherty had been bravely fighting breast cancer since 2015. After going into remission in 2017, the cancer unfortunately returned in 2020 at an advanced stage (stage 4). Doherty underwent brain surgery in 2023 as the cancer had spread to her bones, brain, and lymph nodes. Unfortunately, after her courageous battle, she passed away yesterday on July 13, 2024, at the age of 53.
Many women struggling with infertility have a deep desire to become mothers. Even Doherty bravely opened up about this very personal struggle, revealing her long-held wish to have children even while facing breast cancer.
Shannen Doherty’s Devastating Claims About Cancer
Shannen Doherty‘s story brings up a common worry – can fertility treatments like IVF raise the risk of breast cancer? Her belief that IVF caused her cancer is a misunderstanding that many women also have. In her latest podcast episode of Let’s Be Clear on Monday, the Heathers star had shared her deep struggles with trying to get pregnant through IVF.
Doherty revealed that during her marriage to Kurt Iswarienko, she was “desperately” undergoing IVF treatments. She also expressed her belief that these treatments might have been linked to her breast cancer diagnosis in 2015. The actress recalled:
Not only did I want a child for myself, but I wanted it for my husband. I wanted it for our marriage. I wanted him to have that part of himself fulfilled as well.
Doherty and Iswarienko were married for eleven years before she filed for divorce in April 2023. Since they met later in life, she had to try IVF to get pregnant. The actress also mentioned that many other women she knew who went through IVF ended up with breast cancer too.
Doherty explained that if you have a “wonky” cell that’s already at risk of becoming cancerous, the hormones used in IVF could increase the likelihood of it turning into cancer.
Research Says No Link Between IVF and Breast Cancer
A 2016 study in the British Medical Journal looked at more than 255,000 women undergoing IVF and found no increased risk of breast cancer. A similar 2022 study in the British Journal of Surgery also found no link between fertility treatments, including multiple rounds of IVF, and breast cancer risk. These studies provide strong evidence that fertility treatments do not cause breast cancer.
However, things aren’t entirely straightforward. According to National Cancer Institute, infertility itself might be linked to a slightly higher risk of breast cancer. This could be because women needing fertility treatments often have denser breasts, which can increase cancer risk. Plus, women seeking IVF are usually older, and breast cancer risk increases with age. However, this varies and is not always the case.
