The HRT Controversy Redux

A 2002 study linking hormone replacement therapy to the risk of breast cancer scared scores of menopausal women away from HRT. Now new research, published in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care,reports that "there is no clear evidence that the decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy is linked to a reported fall in the numbers of new cases of breast cancer, as has been claimed," according to a release from the publisher.

"Based on the observed trends in the incidence of breast cancer following the decline in HRT use, the ecological evidence is too limited either to support or refute the possibility that HRT causes breast cancer," the authors wrote in the last of a series of five critiques of the published data in three major studies on HRT.

In related news, a consensus statement issued by seven major professional societies and published on line in the journals Climacteric and Maturitas stated that hormone replacement therapy is the most effective available treatment for menopause symptoms. An article about the statement in Medpage Today reports that the risk-benefit balance for HRT "tends to be greatest in women younger than 60 or within 10 years after menopause -- not only for relief of menopause symptoms but also for preventing osteoporosis-related fractures, the statement indicated."

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The HRT Controversy Redux