The safety of postmenopausal estrogen is more controversial than ever. For years, women were told this treatment for hot flashes and night sweats would also prevent heart attacks, bone deterioration and other chronic conditions. Then a large study in 2002 revealed that women on Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progesterone, were more likely to develop breast cancer.
Doctors have argued about the safety of hormone replacement therapy for the past ten years, and the question is still not settled. Early in March, a study in The Lancet Oncology proclaimed no additional breast cancer risk for women on estrogen alone and even suggested it might be slightly protective. This week, however, results from 60,000 nurses studied from 1980 to 2008 showed that women who took postmenopausal estrogen were at increased risk of breast cancer. The longer they took it, the greater the risk. Taking progesterone with estrogen boosted the likelihood of breast cancer even more.
Although the increase is significant, the total number of women getting breast cancer during the study was relatively small. In addition, the data don’t show that the women using HRT were more likely to die of breast cancer. Most experts still advise women to use hormones if they need help with horrible hot flashes, but to take the medicine at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time.
[American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Chicago]
