Washington - Doctors researching various hormone therapies have discovered some alarming facts. Women who have been taking combined therapy hormones for five years or longer are at greatly increased risk for abnormal mammograms, and abnormal breast biopsies.
There is believed to be about 25 million women in America who take replacement hormones or other hormone therapies. These hormone therapies are to fight the effects and discomfort of menopause, and for other medical conditions. Some of the conditions that these therapies try to solve include night sweats, mood swings, and hot flashes. All of these symptoms are present in women who have gone through menopause or who are dealing with it currently.
Dr. Rowan Chlebowski is on staff at the LA Biomedical Research Institute, linked with the UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Chlebowski and his fellow researchers tracked 16,608 women who were postmenopausal, in a five-year study.
Some of the women included women from the greater Los Angeles Area, and some of the women were followed in Oregon, through the Portland Based Bess Kaiser Medical Center.
Nearly half of the group received specific hormone therapy of progesterone and estrogen, and the other half of the women received a placebo. Of the women studied, 150 women who received the placebo developed cancer, and 199 women in the group that received hormone therapy developed cancer.
The hormone-receiving group was more likely to have abnormal mammogram results by nearly a 2 to 1 ratio.
The reason why is not known, but it is believed that the women taking hormones may have had a breast density increase from the hormone usage. It is this increased breast density, which may have led to the abnormal breast mammograms. More study is definitely needed in this area; no clear answer presents itself at the current time
No comments for Increased Hormone Therapy Risk Revealed
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.