Hormone Replacement Therapy – WebMD

Is hormone therapy (HRT) making a comeback?

WebMD Feature Archive

A few years ago, the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) looked like a medical mess. For decades, women were told that HRT -- usually a combination of estrogen and progestin -- was good for them during and after menopause. Then the 2002 results of the Women's Health Initiative study seemed to show just the opposite: hormone replacement therapy actually had life-threatening risks such as heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.

"Women felt betrayed," says Isaac Schiff, MD, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "They were calling their doctors, saying, 'How could you put me on this drug which causes heart attacks, strokes, and cancer?'"

HRT: Revisiting the Hormone Decision

It was the summer of 2002 when the news about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) shook us to the core. In what felt like a bomb dropped on all womankind, the U.S. federal government halted the hormone trial of the Women's Health Initiative early a study designed to evaluate the risks and benefits of hormone replacement therapy on disease prevention. The reason: Not only had HRT failed to be the protective fountain of youth doctors and women had long since believed, evidence was mounting...

Read the HRT: Revisiting the Hormone Decision article > >

Almost overnight, standard medical practice changed. Doctors stopped prescribing hormone replacement therapy and 65% of women on HRT quit, according to Schiff.

But some experts say hormone replacement therapy may be coming back. All along HRT remained an important treatment for menopause symptoms like hot flashes. And now, a number of recent studies show that hormone replacement therapy may have protective benefits for women who are early in menopause.

"I think we swung too positive on hormone therapy in the past and then we went too negative," says Schiff, who is also chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Task Force on Hormone Therapy. "Now we're trying to find a balance in between."

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Hormone Replacement Therapy - WebMD