Unpacking Health Headlines: Contraception, Brain Tumours, and GLP-1 Medications and Smear Test Changes

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Recent social media claims about contraception and health risks require careful examination, as medical headlines often lack crucial context that healthcare professionals need to provide to patients.

• The claim that "contraceptive injections increase brain tumour risk" refers specifically to benign intracranial meningiomas, with risk increasing from 0.01% to 0.04%
• Average age of women in the depo-contraceptive/meningioma study was 57.6 years, when guidelines already recommend switching from depo around age 50
• GLP-1 medications (like Ozempic and Mounjaro) require reliable contraception during use and for two months after discontinuation
• Mounjaro specifically decreases oral contraceptive effectiveness, requiring either non-oral contraception or barrier methods during titration periods
• UK cervical screening now moves to 5-yearly for HPV-negative results due to HPV vaccination success reducing cervical cancer by 90%
• Scotland reports zero cervical cancer cases in women vaccinated since the 2008 HPV vaccination programme began
• Any concerning symptoms warrant immediate investigation rather than waiting for routine screening appointments
• Self-testing options for cervical screening are being piloted to improve the current 64-65% uptake rate

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BMJ Study Depo - Use of progestogens and the risk of intracranial meningioma: national case-control study | The BMJ

FSRH Statement Depo - FSRH CEU Statement: Response to new study by Roland et al (2024) | FSRH

Pfizer Statement Depo - Medroxyprogesterone_acetate_-_Risk_of_meningioma_and_measures_to_minimise_this_risk_-_to_publish.pdf

FSRH Statement GLP-1 and oral contraception - CEU-statement-GLP-1-agonists-and-contraception.pdf

FSRH Patient info leaflet GLP-1 - Patient-information-GLP-1-agonists-and-contraception.pdf

UK Gov info GLP-1 - GLP-1 medicines for weight loss and diabetes: what you need to know - GOV.UK

BMJ Extention to Cervical Screening - Extension of cervical screening intervals with primary human pap

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