Last Updated on July 7, 2026 by Staff
Meningiomas are the common kind of brain tumor that adults get and they account for almost 40% of all primary tumors that affect the brain and central nervous system. Luckily 90% of these tumors are not cancerous. Even the noncancerous meningiomas can cause serious health problems because they put pressure on the brain tissue around them. Depending on how big they’re where they are they can cause headaches, memory loss, seizures, vision problems, personality changes and other symptoms that affect the nerves. To treat meningiomas doctors often use surgery, radiation therapy or both and each of these treatments has its risks.
Doctors have noticed that women get meningiomas a lot more often than men. This big difference has made researchers want to find out if female hormones have something to do with how these tumors grow and develop. A new study that was just published in JAMA Network Open gives evidence that some hormonal birth control methods might slightly increase the risk of getting a meningioma.
Large Population Study
Researchers looked at the health records of three million women in Denmark over a period of 25 years. In doing a traditional clinical trial they used Denmark’s nationwide medical registries, which have a lot of information on prescriptions, medical diagnoses and cancer records.
The scientists compared 1,473 women who had meningiomas to then 14,700 women who did not have the tumor. Each woman with a brain tumor was matched with ten women who were similar in age, birthplace and marital status. This way the researchers could minimize the differences between the groups. Get a better idea of how hormonal contraceptive use might affect the risk of meningioma.
Because there were many participants and the study went on for so long it gives one of the strongest pieces of evidence we have about the relationship between hormonal contraception and the risk of meningioma.
Higher Risk Found
The researchers found that some hormonal contraceptives that are commonly used are associated with a higher risk of getting a meningioma.
The strongest link was found in women who use medroxyprogesterone injections, which are also known as the birth control shot. Dose hormonal intrauterine devices or IUDs that have 52 milligrams of levonorgestrel also showed an increased risk, especially in women who had used them for more than a year.
Combined oral contraceptive pills that have both estrogen and progestogen were also linked to an increase in risk. Among progestogen- pills the increased risk seemed to be mainly associated with products that contain desogestrel.
It is important to note that dose hormonal IUDs did not show the same increased risk, which suggests that the amount of hormone in the contraceptive might play a big role. Even though these findings show an increase in risk researchers want to emphasize that the overall risk is still relatively small for individual women.
Why Hormones Matter
Scientists have reasons to think that hormones influence the development of meningiomas. Previous studies have shown that up to 87% of meningiomas have progesterone receptors. These receptors allow tumor cells to respond directly to progesterone and similar synthetic hormones known as progestogens.
Doctors have also seen that some meningiomas grow faster during pregnancy, when natural hormone levels go up a lot. In cases these tumors shrink again after childbirth or once hormone-based medications are stopped.
The new study also found a higher risk among women who had recently been pregnant which supports the idea that hormonal changes might affect tumor growth. However researchers stress that hormones are likely one of many factors that contribute to the development of meningiomas.
What It Means
One reassuring thing about the study is that the increased risk does not seem to be permanent.
Women who stopped using contraceptives saw their risk go down over time. For contraceptive methods the increased risk disappeared about five years after they stopped using them although there were some exceptions among women who used desogestrel-containing pills. Because millions of women around the world use birth control, even small increases in risk are important from a public health perspective. Experts want to emphasize that the absolute risk for any individual woman is still low.
The researchers hope that these findings will help women and healthcare providers make informed decisions when choosing contraceptive methods. Of avoiding hormonal birth control altogether the study highlights the importance of considering each woman’s personal medical history, family history and overall health when choosing the best contraceptive option.
More research is still needed to understand how different hormones affect the development of brain tumors. Until then doctors encourage women to talk to their healthcare providers about the benefits and potential risks of birth control methods before making decisions about long-term contraceptive use.