Women S Health Initiative

Estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy may benefit younger postmenopausal women who do not have a uterus, a Canadian researcher said Thursday at the annual meeting of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Dr. Joseph Ragaz, an oncologist at the University of British Columbia, presented a re-analysis of the Women's Health Initiative -- which originally concluded that both long-term estrogen-only and estrogen-plus-progestin hormone replacement were too risky for most women.

A significant rise in hip fractures among women is one result of the decade-long slide in the popularity of hormone replacement therapy, researchers report in a new study. The landmark Women's Health Initiative study showed unequivocally that hormone therapy helps strengthen women's bones and prevents fractures of hip, wrist and spine by 27% to 35%. However, hormone use fell out of favor after studies in 2002 showed it raised the risk of breast cancer and did not lower heart-disease risk and, in fact, may elevate the risk in some women.

Estrogen-plus-progestin hormone replacement therapy increases the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Now a longer-term study of the problem shows the higher risk of breast cancer continues among women who took hormones but stopped, that the cancer in these women may be more advanced and that the likelihood of dying of breast cancer is increased. The link between hormone therapy and breast cancer was confirmed with the conclusion of the Women's Health Initiative study in 2005, based on about 5 1/2 years of data.

Far fewer women take hormone replacement therapy than did a decade ago, but the drugs are a mixed bag of risks and benefits, as studies occasionally point out. For women who are especially concerned about colon cancer, hormone therapy might be a good idea. A study has found that using hormone replacement therapy for any length of time cut the risk of distal colon cancer in half. The distal part of the colon is closest to the rectum. The longer women took hormone therapy, the greater the reduced risk.

Recruitment for the Women's Health Initiative, the largest study ever on issues pertaining to women's health, will close on time at the end of the month, according to government health officials. The study, which began recruiting women in 1994, has enrolled more than 130,000 post-menopausal women nationwide and will meet its recruitment goals, says Dr. Jacques Rossouw, project officer for the National Institutes of Health.

Six weeks after a large clinical trial on estrogen therapy was abruptly terminated, scientists have published the first details of the study -- revealing that, on average, the hormone caused 12 more strokes and six additional venous blood clots per 10,000 women each year. Researchers for the Women's Health Initiative also reported in today's Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Two years ago, the federal government launched the largest study ever of major issues pertaining to women's health. The Women's Health Initiative was designed to boost knowledge about women after a major government report revealed that many previous studies focused primarily on men. But, with a deadline set for the year 2005, investigators are concerned that too few women will join the study, thus jeopardizing researchers' ability to obtain clear-cut answers to some important questions.

Three years ahead of schedule, scientists have unexpectedly halted a critical clinical trial testing the effects of hormone replacement therapy on women after menopause because of a slight but significant increase in the risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, blood clots and strokes. The trial, which tracked 16,608 women taking either the hormones estrogen and progestin or a placebo for five years, was brought to an end after a review in late May made it clear that the risks of the hormone regimen outweighed the benefits.

Hormone replacement therapy, already linked to increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease and stroke, nearly doubles a woman's risk of dying from lung cancer, researchers reported Saturday in a finding that may be the final blow for a therapy that is already in rapidly declining use. The findings "seriously question whether hormone-replacement therapy has any role in medicine today," Dr. Apar Kishor Ganti of the University of Nebraska Medical...

More than half of American women over the age of 60 take vitamin D and calcium supplements, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said this week that they're probably wasting their money. In a new recommendations from the federal government's expert panel on preventive medicine, the task force says that most postmenopausal women should not take vitamin D and calcium to reduce their risk of bone fractures. The dosages assessed were 400 international units (IUs) of vitamin D3 and 1,000 milligrams of calcium per day. The conclusions are based on an analysis of six randomized trials designed to study the health effects of vitamin D and calcium supplements.