Can hormone injections for emergency IVF make cancer worse?

One of the concerns that frequently arises in the patients who are being treated for breast cancer are whether or not the hormonal change we induce as part of the egg harvesting process might make their cancer worse or harder to cure. There is no evidence that this is the case, but some doctors still have a concern because of the known association between estrogen and the development of breast cancer. At Northwestern our sense, as a group, is that if such a risk exists, it’s very modest and we are comfortable recommending that patients who have breast cancer go ahead with such approaches as emergency IVF.