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Journalism of Courage
Three years after they stopped hormone replacement therapy, women who took the drugs still had a 27 per cent higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who took a placebo, researchers reported on Wednesday. The women were participants in the Women’s Health Initiative, which was halted abruptly in 2002 when researchers found that the doses of estrogen and progestin increased patients’ risk for heart disease, stroke and breast cancer.
Although the heart risks eased after the women stopped taking the drugs, their overall cancer risk remained 24 per cent above average.
“Menopausal women really need to think through whether using estrogen-progestin is the right thing to do, particularly if continued for more than a few years,” said Marcia L Stefanick, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and one of the authors of the paper appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Physicians taking the medical history of a new patient past menopausal age should also “ask specific questions about past use of hormone therapy” and be alert for possible problems, said Dr Robert W Rebar, executive director of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, who was not involved in the study.“The important message is women really need to make sure they continue getting their mammograms,” Stefanick said.
Some experts noted that hormone use has changed dramatically since 2002, with physicians prescribing lower doses for shorter periods of time. They also are giving the drugs to younger women— a group that the Women’s Health Initiative found was less likely to suffer adverse effects form the therapy.
