A new study suggests that genital talcum powder use may increase a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer.

Talc is a moisture-absorbing mineral made of magnesium, silicon and oxygen. It is commonly found in personal hygiene products.

However, in 2006, the World Health Organization classified genital talcum powder use as possibly cancer-causing. The International Agency for Research on Cancer also lists talc-based body powder as associated with ovarian cancer when applied between the legs, observing a “modest but unusually consistent excess in risk” in many case-control studies.

Researchers and doctors have tried to establish a connection between the use of genital talc and the risk of ovarian cancer for some time; now a new study in the Journal of Epidemiology has established that women who use talcum powder are indeed at a greater risk of developing the disease.

Genital Talcum Powder Use & Ovarian Cancer

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that every year “about 20,000 women in the United States get ovarian cancer. Among women in the United States, ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer and the fifth leading cause of cancer death,” statistics that roughly translate to 14,500 women succumbing to the disease annually in the United States, alone.

Decades of medical research regarding genital talcum powder use has met with mixed results, but now this new study published in the Journal of Epidemiology suggests that the risk of ovarian cancer is about 33 percent higher among women who routinely applied talcum powder to their genitals, underwear, sanitary napkins or tampons.

Researchers at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Epidemiology Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston did a retrospective study of 2,041 women with ovarian cancer and 2,100 similar premenopausal women and postmenopausal women who used hormone therapy without ovarian cancer, and focused on their talcum powder use.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Daniel W. Cramer, first reported the link between talc and ovarian cancer in 1982.

“This is an easily modified risk factor. Talc is a good drying agent, but women should know that if it’s used repeatedly, it can get into the vagina and into their upper genital tract. And I think if they knew that, they wouldn’t use it,” said Cramer.

Talc Cancer Lawsuits

Just last week a St. Louis jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $72 million in damages to the family of an Alabama woman, who, according to her talc cancer lawsuit, developed ovarian cancer after using Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder and died.

Johnson and Johnson, however, maintains that scientific evidence shows that talc – long marketed for babies’ bottoms – is safe.

If you have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and believe that it could be due to genital talcum powder use, you should take steps to protect yourself.  You can start by contacting a talc cancer lawyer to see if you are eligible to file a baby powder cancer lawsuit.