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Women wanting to increase chances of having children through in vitro fertilization (IVF) can now heave a sigh of relief following the assurance from experts in a recent study, that no evidence shows linking the procedure to breast cancer.

A team of Dutch researchers has debunked earlier data that suggested hormones such as estrogen and progestogens have the significant effect that could potentially increase the risk of having breast cancer.

The recent findings are based on a study of approximately 25,000 women who had undergone IVF procedure between the years 1983 and 1995. WebMD learns that most of the subject in the study initiated by Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, included women who were 33 years old when they first participated in the study and underwent three to four IVF cycles.

The breast cancer rates of one group of women who had undergone the procedure have been compared to those who never depended on IVF. And in the report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on July 19, the researchers assert that there appeared to be no evidence of risk for breast cancer in any of the groups.

Statistics show that the IVF group recorded cumulative rate of breast cancer at 3.0 percent compared to the rate of the non-IVF group at 2.9 percent.

“The main takeaway is there’s no evidence of an increased subsequent risk of breast cancer, at least in the first couple decades,” the New York Times quoted Dr. Saundra S. Buys as saying. Buys is an oncologist at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah.

“That’s reassuring, because you would think if you did I.V.F. 10 times, your risk would be higher,” the president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Dr. Owen K. Davis explains in a separate statement.

Women through the years have resorted to IVF in hopes to conceive a child. An estimated five million children were born through IVF.