HRT link to lung cancer

Monday September 21st, 2009

An expert yesterday questioned whether hormone replacement therapy has "any role" in medicine after new findings linked it to cancer.

The new findings link HRT to lung cancer and, writing in The Lancet, the researchers say this makes the treatment especially hazardous for smokers.

The latest findings come from a new analysis of the the US study of HRT, the Women's Health Initiative, involving some 16,000 women.

The researchers found that women taking HRT were 28 per cent more likely than others to be diagnosed with lung cancer - although the finding was not statistically significant.

The researchers, led by Professor Rowan Chlebowski, of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, California, USA, write: "These findings should be incorporated into risk-benefit discussions with women considering combined hormone therapy, especially those with a high risk of lung cancer, such as current smokers or long-term past smokers."

But in the same journal, Dr Apar Kishor Ganti, of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, USA, states: "These results, along with the findings showing no protection against coronary heart disease, seriously question whether hormone-replacement therapy has any role in medicine today.

"It is difficult to presume that the benefits of routine use of such therapy for menopausal symptoms outweigh the increased risks of mortality, especially in the absence of improvement in the quality of life."

The Lancet, 20 September 2009 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61526-9

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Tags: Cancer | Drug and Alcohol Abuse | North America | Women’s Health & Gynaecology

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