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Dr. Kim Mulvihill ReportingIn 2002, a huge study called the Women's Health Initiative ended early when the study revealed hormone therapy had serious health risks for some women, including increased risk of breast cancer. But now the Women's Health Initiative has announced that for women who have had a hysterectomy, there is a kind of hormone therapy they can take to reduce the symptoms of menopause without increasing their risk of breast cancer.
When it comes to menopause, one of the toughest decisions is whether or not to take hormones.
Marcia Stefanik, Ph.D., Stanford University: "Everyone says hormones, and they don't realize there's a huge difference between estrogen alone and estrogen plus progestin, and a big difference between women who have a uterus and women who've had a hysterectomy."
Dr. Marcia Stefanik of Stanford University was one of the researchers who studied the effects of conjugated equine estrogen on women who'd had a hysterectomy. The study is published in the journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Stefanik: "Unlike the study of estrogen plus progestin in women with a uterus, this study showed absolutely no increase in breast cancer with estrogen only for women who had had prior hysterectomy."
The women who took estrogen alone got breast cancer at about the same rate as the women who took a placebo.
Dr. Stefanik: "There were fewer breast cancers diagnosed for women on the active study pills. However, when we looked at those tumors, those tumors were actually significantly larger, and there was a tendency for them to have spread to more lymph nodes."
While they aren't sure why that was the case, they focus on the differences between this study and the past one.
Dr. Stefanik: "In the estrogen and progestin trial, those women who got on the active pills, we saw an increase in breast cancer within five years. In the case of estrogen only, we not only do not see an increase by seven years, but there's actually a suggestion of a decrease."
The study also found the greatest reduction in breast cancer risk occurred when women first started taking the estrogen, and that benefit decreased the longer the women took the pills.
The bottom line, women should talk with their doctors to weigh the risks and benefits of taking hormones.
