Overview

• The case-control study used French national health data to compare 8,391 women who had surgery for intracranial meningioma with 83,910 matched controls.
• Continuous use of desogestrel for more than five years was associated with a slight increase in meningioma surgeries, estimated at one additional case per 67,000 users and one per 17,000 long-term users.
• Risk levels returned to baseline within 12 months of stopping desogestrel, and no elevated tumor risk was found for levonorgestrel-only or estrogen-combined contraceptives.
• Women older than 45 and those with prior exposure to high-risk progestogens experienced a higher excess risk of developing intracranial meningioma.
• Investigators recommend discontinuing desogestrel upon tumor detection and monitoring patients rather than proceeding directly to surgery, while noting that the observational design cannot establish causation.