Monday, September 26, 2011

Hormone Replacement Therapy


This morning we briefly talked about the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI)and hormone replacement therapy. WHI was a set clinical trials including two hormone trials in healthy postmenopausal woman 50-70. The hormone trials were stopped early due to increased risk of cardiac events, VTE, stroke and breast cancer. The study did show benefits in reducing fracture and colorectal cancer risk.

Subsequent analysis of the WHI noted that the increased risk of CHD tended to depend on the timing of exposure, with no excess risk observed in younger menopausal women.

Current recommendations are as follows:

Moderate to severe menopausal symptoms can be treated with short term HRT in peri- or postmenopausal women (and no contraindications to estrogen). HRT should be stopped before five years. HRT should not be used as primary or secondary prevention of CAD.


Here is Endocrine Society’s statement on HRT.

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