A new study reveals that menopausal women have a higher risk
of developing cancer, even after stopping hormone replacement therapy.
Almost 25 million American women use hormone replacement
therapy to alleviate the discomforts of menopause, including hot flashes, mood
swings, and night sweats.
The new findings come just a week after researchers at the
Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical
Center revealed that
women taking combined hormone therapy for about five years have a higher risk
of abnormal mammograms and breast biopsies.
Researchers followed about 16,608 women ages 50 to 79 years,
who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative, halted abruptly in 2002 when
it was found that the doses of estrogen and progestin increased patients’ risk
for heart disease, stroke, and breast cancer.
About 6 million American women were estimated to be using
hormone replacement therapy at the time.
The study reveals that after about 2 1/2 years, overall
cancer risk remains about 24 percent higher for women who stopped taking a
popular estrogen-progestin combination compared with those who took placebo
pills.
"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 study.
The good news is that the risk of heart disease faded, however, after women
stopped hormone treatment, said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the U.S. National Institutes of
Health that sponsored the original WHI study, Reuters reports.
“However, these findings also indicate that women who take
estrogen plus progestin continue to be at increased risk of breast cancer, even
years after stopping therapy” he added.
The study’s authors are not sure why higher cancer risks
persisted after women stopped hormone therapy treatment, and they were
particularly puzzled by increased risk for other cancers such as lung tumors.
Stefanick recommended mammograms to the women who stopped
hormone therapy, as breasts become less dense, making it easier for the
procedure to identify small tumors.
In response to the findings, drug maker Wyeth
Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes the hormonal product Prempro, said the
study was likely to add to the confusion for women faced with the decision
about what to do about disruptive symptoms of menopause.
"We really don't believe this latest article provides
any new guidance. We continue to recommend it be used at the lowest effective
dose for the shortest duration of time possible,” said Dr. Gary Stiles, chief
medical officer of Wyeth, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Since 2002, sales of Prempro have dropped from $2 billion a
year to a little more than $1 billion. Breast cancer rates also have fallen,
and many experts attribute the decrease to lower rates of hormone replacement
therapy. Women went off their pills, choosing to risk hot flashes and brittle
bones rather than heart attacks and breast cancer.
The study appeared in Tuesday’s edition of the Journal
of the American Medical Association
