Study Cites Hormones as Cancer Risk

A recent study published in the journal of the American Medical Association shows that any use of hormone therapy in postmenopausal women increases their risk for ovarian cancer. This study authored by Lina Morch et. al., from Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University in Denmark, evaluated over 909,000 danish women whose ages ranged from 50 to 79. The report showed that the increased risk for ovarian cancer appears to happen regardless of dose or form of the hormones used. It also implicates both estrogen therapy as well as combination therapy, which uses a combined dose of estrogen and progestin.

According to this study, hormone therapy increases a woman’s risk for ovarian cancer by 38% compared to women who have never been on hormone therapy. In other words, one case of ovarian cancer can be attributed to hormone therapy out of 3800 women on hormone therapy each year. The risk for ovarian cancer was shown to decrease with each year after ceasing hormone therapy indicating that any hormone use is not safe.

Dr. Andrew Li, who is an oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, reviewed this study for WebMD, and indicated that it confirms what has already been shown previously by other researchers. He does however point out limitations of the study, such as the different ages at which women reached
menopause as well as birth control pill use, which may have influenced the study findings.

A major contribution of this study is that it shows that combined therapy also increses the risk for ovarian cancer.

Previous reports seemed to implicate estrogen-only therapies in boosting ovarian cancer risk. Due to the findings of this study, Morch suggests that women should refrain from using hormone therapy unless necessary, as in the case of women going through premature menopause or severe symptoms of perimenopause.