Hormone therapy, breast cancer risk confirmed -NIH
Reuters, 11.29.02, 4:14 PM ET
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CHICAGO, Nov 29 (Reuters) - A federal study confirmed that women taking hormone replacement therapy are more likely to get breast cancer, though the risk plummets after halting treatment, the National Institutes of Health said on Friday.
"It's not a lifetime of risk they are getting" with this treatment, said Robert Spirtas, a contraception and reproductive health specialist at the NIH and senior author of the study.
Thousands of women taking so-called HRT treatment were advised to stop in July after a separate federal human trial found the most popular form of HRT -- Wyeth's (nyse: WYE - news - people) PremPro -- raises the risk of cancer.
Spirtas' NIH study of about 3800 post-menopausal women reported Friday found that women taking PremPro or equivalent drugs -- a mix of the hormones estrogen and progestin -- were 1.54 times more likely to get breast cancer than their counterparts not on the treatment.
Yet the risk begins to drop to normal just six months after stopping combined hormone treatment, according to study results published in the December 2002 issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
The NIH studied post-menopausal women on hormone replacement therapy for five years or more.
Some women only take the therapy for several months when they have severe symptoms like hot flashes and vaginal dryness, while others have been on it for 15 to 20 years, Spirtas said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has strengthened warnings on Wyeth's PremPro and Premarin, which uses only estrogen.
Wyeth has said prescriptions for PremPro have fallen 40 percent, and those for Premarin have slumped 15 percent since news of those studies emerged.
Doctors still disagree on whether combined HRT, taken by an estimate 6 million U.S. women, is too risky to be widely prescribed.
(--with reporting by Maggie Fox)
Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service |
