HRT Increases Risk Of Breast Cancer In Some Women
Seattle – Recent results from some studies have shown that women who use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to relieve menopausal symptoms have more than three times as many breast cancer recurrences as survivors who did not take HRT.
HRT (usually a combination of the hormones estrogen and progestin) . HRT is use for menopausal flushing, to stimulate sexual urge, etc. But with the discovery that users ,even in the shortrun, stand a big chance of breast cancer infliction , it now appears that the evils that comes with using HRT far outweigh it benefits.
In July 2002, Women’s Health Initiative embarked on a large randomized clinical trial of estrogen and progestin in healthy postmenopausal women.The study was stopped early because researchers found that women who took the hormones had an increased risk of developing breast cancer and heart disease.
Women who want to take estrogen and progestin was advised by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration discuss with their doctors whether their benefits outweigh the risks and that, if used, the hormones should be taken “at the lowest doses for the shortest duration to reach treatment goals.”
A look at the percentage of U.S. women who had a mammogram ( ie an X-ray image of a breast ) shows that breast cancer risk drops after women stop hormone use: 40 to 49 * 2000: 64.2% * 2005: 63.5% 50-64 * 2000: 78.6% * 2005: 71.8% 65 and older * 2000: 68% * 2005: 63.8%.
A randomized trial of 434 study participants were assigned to receive either HRT or non-hormonal treatment for their menopausal symptoms research team led by Lars Holmberg, M.D., of University Hospital in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1997, it was discovered after just two years that 26 women in the HRT group and only seven in the non-HRT group had a recurrence of breast cancer. Despite the short period of the study and the low number of participants, it was concluded that even over a short period of time , use of HRT posed an high risk of breast cancer recurrence.By April 2, 2008, Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported a confirmation of this findings over a longer period of follow-up.
However, this 1997 findings fall short of two characteristics that are generally considered to strengthen the findings of a clinical trial. Firstly, it enrolled just 434 women instead of 1,300 as originally planned. Secondly,the study was not placebo-controlled (ie it was not randomly executed). Therefore , this study would not be strong enough to provide conclusive evidence that breast cancer survivors should avoid HRT.But the fact that the results are consistent with those of other studies, including the Women’s Health Initiative study , give credence to the assertion that HRT increases risk of breast cancer in some women.