Studies
Depo-Provera adverse-event reports: 4 to 1,845
FDA reports naming Depo-Provera and meningioma rose sharply since 2023. Here's what the data shows, and why it's a reporting surge, not a disease surge.
Why did Depo-Provera adverse-event reports jump so fast?
Reports naming Depo-Provera and meningioma, a usually non-cancerous brain tumor, went from 4 in 2023 to 1,845 in 2025. That’s a real jump in the paperwork. It’s not the same thing as a jump in how many women are actually developing the tumor.
The FDA keeps a public log of adverse event reports for every drug on the market. It’s called FAERS, the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. (The FDA has since renamed it AEMS, but FAERS is still how most people recognize it.)
The numbers: 4 reports in 2023, 1,845 in 2025
Here’s the report count, by the year the FDA received it.
FAERS reports naming Depo-Provera and meningioma rose sharply after 2023.
Reports received, not diagnoses confirmed. A voluntary reporting count, not a disease-tracking count.
| Report date | reports received | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 4 | FDA reports received, 2023 |
| 2024 | 107 | FDA reports received, 2024 |
| 2025 | 1,845 | FDA reports received, 2025 |
Reports, not diagnoses. Every point on this chart counts a report someone filed, not a confirmed new case of meningioma. The rise tells you people started looking and reporting. It doesn’t tell you the underlying risk changed.
2026 is on the same trajectory: 1,341 reports in the partial year so far, through the FDA’s most recent data pull. That’s not on the chart above because the year isn’t finished yet and a partial count would make the line look like it’s turning down when the year simply hasn’t been fully reported yet. The reporting-vs-diagnosis distinction above applies to that figure too.
Zoomed out, meningioma shows up often in the wider Depo-Provera report file too. Of about 22,500 total Depo-Provera adverse event reports across all reactions and all years, 3,323 (14.8%) name a meningioma-family reaction. That 14.8% is a share of what people reported, not a rate of who gets sick. It tells you what’s on people’s minds when they file a report, not how common the tumor actually is.
What FAERS actually measures
FAERS is a voluntary reporting system, not a diagnosis registry. Anyone can file a report: a patient, a family member, a doctor, a lawyer’s office building a case file. The FDA collects every report as-is. It doesn’t verify the diagnosis, and it doesn’t require a report at all.
The FDA says this about its own data, plainly:
“The information in these reports cannot be used to estimate the incidence (occurrence rates) of the events reported.”
That’s the FDA’s own words, not ours. A rising report count can mean more people are hearing about a possible link and choosing to report it. It can’t, on its own, tell you whether more women are actually being diagnosed.
A few more things the same report file shows. 90.5% of the meningioma reports came from women, 93.6% were filed from the US, and the FDA flagged 100% as “serious.” Only 6.6% of those serious reports also noted a hospitalization.
Why the reports rose: a study and a lawsuit, not more cases
Two things happened right before the numbers climbed. In 2024, a large BMJ study found women using high-dose medroxyprogesterone acetate, the hormone in Depo-Provera, had a higher rate of meningioma than non-users. (See how that study’s number compares to two others.) That same year, the federal litigation over Depo-Provera and meningioma began gathering cases, and it has kept growing since.
Put together, a published study and a growing lawsuit are the documented drivers behind the reporting jump. They’re not new medical evidence that meningioma itself is becoming more common. When a condition makes headlines or becomes part of a legal case, people who already have it, or who are wondering if their symptoms fit, are far more likely to file a report about it. That’s a change in reporting behavior. It is a different thing from a change in how many women actually develop a meningioma.
Current as of July 19, 2026
These figures come straight from the FDA’s own openFDA system, pulled directly rather than through a law firm’s summary. If you used Depo-Provera and you’re wondering whether any of this applies to you, you don’t need to read a docket or a data file to find out.