Desogestrel for More Than Five Years May Up Risk of Intracranial Meningioma

Jun 26, 2025

WEDNESDAY, June 25, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Women who have used the oral contraceptive desogestrel (75 µg) for more than five continuous years have a small increased risk of intracranial meningioma, according to a study published online June 11 in The BMJ.

Noémie Roland, M.D., Ph.D., from the French National Health Insurance in Saint-Denis, and colleagues examined the risk of intracranial meningioma associated with oral contraceptives containing desogestrel, levonorgestrel, or levonorgestrel combined with estrogen. The study included 8,391 women in France who required surgery for intracranial meningioma in 2020 to 2023; each patient was matched to 10 women without intracranial meningioma.

The researchers found that in analyses of desogestrel according to duration of use, the odds ratio for risk of intracranial meningioma was not significant for short-term use but was significantly increased for prolonged use (odds ratio [OR], 1.32). Risk was driven by more than five continuous years of use (ORs, 1.51 and 2.09 for five to seven and seven or more years, respectively). Women with meningiomas located in the middle or anterior part of the skull base had greater excess risk (ORs, 1.90 and 1.50, respectively), as did those who had previously used a progestogen of known associated increased risk (OR, 3.30). Regardless of duration of use, there was no excess risk of intracranial meningioma for levonorgestrel (alone or combined with estrogen). For one intracranial meningioma requiring surgery, the estimated number needed to harm with desogestrel was 67,300 women.

“It is already common knowledge that stopping cyproterone, nomegestrol, chlormadinone, promegestone, medroxyprogesterone, or medrogestone precludes the need for surgery,” Gilles Reuter, M.D., of Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège in Belgium, writes in an accompanying editorial. “Now we know that stopping desogestrel may also avoid unnecessary potentially harmful treatments.”

Abstract/Full Text

Editorial (subscription or payment may be required)