Hormone replacement therapy increased deaths in WHI study: National Breast Cancer Coalition

New data from the Women's Health Initiative Study on post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy shows HRT not only increases breast cancer incidence in post-menopausal women, it also increases the rate of aggressive forms of breast cancer as well as increased deaths. It's more evidence that women should avoid hormone replacement therapy to treat symptoms of menopause. Read more below:

Additional follow-up from the Women's Health Initiative study has found that combination hormone replacement therapy not only increased the incidence of breast cancer, but also increased the incidence of more advanced cancers, the number of deaths from breast cancer, and the number of deaths from all causes. The 11-year follow-up analysis is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A total of 16,608 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years were originally randomized to receive a combination hormone replacement therapy (estrogen plus progestin) or a placebo. In follow-up of over 12,000 of the participants, investigators found more deaths directly attributed to breast cancer as well as more deaths from all causes occurring after a breast cancer diagnosis among women who received estrogen plus progestin compared with women in the placebo group. Breast cancers in the estrogen-plus-progestin group were similar in histology and grade to breast cancers in the placebo group but were more likely to be node-positive. The study authors speculate that progestin, which is a known stimulator of angiogenesis, may facilitate tumor growth and metastasis.

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