An Effect Of Hormone Therapy On Breast Cancer

An Effect Of Hormone Therapy On Breast Cancer.
Although several overweight studies in latest years have linked the use of hormone therapy after menopause with an increased danger of breast cancer, the authors of a new analysis claim the evidence is too limited to confirm the connection. Dr Samuel Shapiro, of the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa, and his colleagues took another air at three eminently studies that investigated hormone therapy and its credible health risks - the Collaborative Reanalysis, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) and the Million Women Study. Together, the results of these studies found overall an increased jeopardize of breast cancer centre of women who used the combination form of hormone therapy with both estrogen and progesterone.

Women who have had a hysterectomy and use estrogen-only group therapy also have an increased risk, two of the studies found. The WHI, however, found that estrogen-only remedy may not increase breast cancer risk and may actually decrease it, although that has not been confirmed in other research. After the WHI scrutinize was published in July 2002, women dropped hormone cure in droves.

Many experts pointed to that decline in hormone therapy use as the reason breast cancer rates were declining. Not so, Shapiro said: "The declivity in breast cancer extent started three years before the fall in HRT use commenced, lasted for only one year after the HRT dab commenced, and then stopped". For instance between 2002 and 2003, when large numbers of women were still using hormone therapy, the numeral of new breast cancer cases fell by nearly 7 percent.

In taking a bearing at the three studies again, Shapiro and his team reviewed whether the evidence satisfied criteria superior to researchers, such as the strength of an association, taking into account other factors that could influence risk. Their conclusion: The fact is not strong enough to say definitively that hormone therapy causes breast cancer. The go into is published in the current issue of the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.

The budding conclusion drew mixed reactions from experts. In an editorial accompanying the study, Nick Panay, a adviser gynecologist at the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London, supported the conclusions of the unknown analysis. "If there is a risk, the risk is small, and the benefits of HRT can be life-altering. It is compulsory that we keep this in perspective when counseling our patients".

The hormone therapy in use today is move in dose than those used in the previous research. "In principle, we tend to start with lower doses than we old to and increase as required until full symptom relief has been achieved". What is needed now is a clinical experimental in which the hormone therapy in use today is compared with placebo, to evaluate the risks and benefits.

Another adroit took a more middle-of-the-road view about the potential link. "It would be hard to say the entire abatement in breast cancer rates is due to the decline in HRT use," said Dr Steven Narod, the Canada Research Chair in Breast Cancer at the University of Toronto.

According to Dr Susan Gapstur, iniquity president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society, the unique analysis overlooks some other eminent information. "Indeed, there is a much larger body of scientific evidence from clinical trials and from observational epidemiologic studies comparing heart of hearts cancer incidence rates in women who used HRT to those who did not that demonstrate the risks and benefits of HRT for habitual diseases".

So "Women need to discuss with their doctors the risk and benefits of taking HRT for the essential prevention of chronic disease, including breast cancer". Narod said hormone replacement is an great therapy for some women. Therapy that includes progesterone carries more peril and limiting use to five years or less seems wise vigrx. Shapiro has performed consulting work for the manufacturers of hormone therapy, and Panay has received grants from pharmaceutical companies.