In women with no history of breast cancer, estrogen-only systemic hormone replacement therapy is not linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, according to the. According to studies from the Women's Health Initiative and other research, estrogen-only systemic hormone replacement therapy is not linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, according to studies from the Women's Health Initiative and other research. In certain groups of women, such as those with no family history of breast cancer or benign breast disease, estrogen-based systemic hormone therapy appears to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer. In general, when you receive hormone replacement therapy, you're taking estrogens and progesterone.
These hormones are linked to several types of cancer, including breast cancer and endometrial cancer. According to a new risk model published in the British Journal of General Practice, hormone replacement therapy given at age 50 for up to 5 years only modestly increases the risk of breast cancer, even in women with a strong family history of the disease. While it is known that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can increase the risk of breast cancer, but that this risk is quite low for most women, primary care physicians and women themselves have expressed concern that it may not be safe for women with a significant family history of the disease. Researchers from the London Cancer Research Institute, the University of Cambridge and the University of Manchester developed a risk model that integrates data on the relative risk of breast cancer associated with different types and durations of HRT, with data on the age-related risk of breast cancer based on the number of family members with breast cancer. It is known that the risk of breast cancer increases more dramatically if hormone replacement therapy is taken longer or at an older age.
The model indicates that 10 years of hormone replacement therapy between the ages of 50 and 60 increase the risk of developing breast cancer by approximately 2.6 percent for the average woman in the population, and by 5.6 percent for exemplary women with a significant family history of breast cancer. This means that, of the 343 women with equally strong family histories, approximately 11 would die from breast cancer diagnosed between the ages of 50 and 80 if none were receiving hormone replacement therapy. If all of these women underwent combined cyclical hormone therapy for five years at age 50, approximately one woman over the age of 343 would die of breast cancer. An official website of the United States government El.
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Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site. National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894. The risk increases the longer you take it and the older you are. It falls back after you stop taking it. For most people, the risk of developing breast cancer due to hormone replacement therapy is small. Around 2 out of every 100 breast cancers in the UK are thought to be related to hormone replacement therapy.
This is a simple summary in English of an original research article. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and reviewers at the time of publication. Women who are considering hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can be certain about their risk of breast cancer. New research suggests that hormonal hormone therapy is usually only linked to a small increase in risk. Different types of hormonal hormone therapy were linked to different risks of breast cancer.
The details of this study should help guide conversations between doctors and women who are considering using HRT. Menopause symptoms can be severe in many women. HRT alleviates these symptoms and can change lives. However, a recent study reported a higher-than-expected risk of breast cancer with hormone replacement therapy.
This renewed the concerns of many women. The new large study, which included more than half a million women, provides peace of mind. He found that, based on other evidence, the risks of hormone replacement therapy are generally low. The risk of breast cancer was extremely low with estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy, but it can only be taken by women whose uterus has been removed (hysterectomy).
Most women take combination hormone therapy that contains estrogen. and progestins. There was no increase in the risk of breast cancer with hormone replacement therapy taken for less than a year. The risks increased with the duration of treatment for HRT and were markedly higher if taken for more than five years.
However, the risks decreased once hormone replacement therapy was stopped. Five years after stopping taking it, there was no increase in the risk of breast cancer in women who had taken combined hormone replacement therapy for less than five years. This research supports the current UK prescribing guideline, which recommends taking HRT for no longer than five years. More information on hormone replacement therapy to treat menopausal symptoms can be found on the National Health Service website.
Women usually go through menopause when they are between 45 and 55 years old. Lowering your estrogen levels is associated with unpleasant effects that can be serious. They include loss of concentration, sleep disorders, hot flashes, mood changes, vaginal dryness, and reduced sexual desire. Hormonal hormone therapy is widely used by women to alleviate menopausal symptoms.
Treatment can also help prevent osteoporosis (weakening of bones) that usually occurs after menopause. Sometimes, hormone replacement therapy is taken for several years. A type of estrogen called estradiol is usually prescribed. If given alone, it increases the risk of uterine cancer. Therefore, it can only be given to women who have undergone a hysterectomy.
Therefore, for most women, estrogen is combined with another hormone, progestogen, that protects the uterus. Hormone replacement therapy is available in the form of tablets, gel, implants or skin patches. Efficacy and side effects differ between available treatments. The use of hormonal hormone therapy by women has declined over the past two decades, as research has shown a higher risk of breast cancer among women who take it. This risk was discovered in a more recent review of the research, which has renewed the concerns of many women.
However, prior to this study, there was little information on the detailed risks of breast cancer with different hormonal combinations and treatment durations. This new study was large enough to explore whether risks differ between different drugs for hormone replacement therapy and the duration of treatment. The study showed that approximately one in three women had taken hormone therapy at some point. Most (70%) had taken a combination of estrogen and progestogen.
Fewer (30%) had taken estrogen alone, which is only suitable for women who have undergone hysterectomy. The study showed that estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy increased the risk of breast cancer only marginally and that this additional risk disappeared once treatment was discontinued. The researchers emphasized that some women who had never taken hormone therapy would still get breast cancer. For example, if a group of 10,000 women in their 50s had never undergone hormone replacement therapy, 26 women would still have breast cancer in one year.
If all 10,000 women had recently taken combined hormone therapy for less than 5 years, 35 would get breast cancer. Therefore, in this large group of women, hormone replacement therapy is linked to 9 additional cases of breast cancer in one year. That's less than one in every thousand women. The increased risk was mainly related to combination hormone therapy, and the type of progestogen was significant the difference.
The risk was similarly increased when preparations containing some types of progestins (norethisterone, levonorgestrel, or medroxyprogesterone) were taken for more than a year. The lowest increase in risk occurred with dydrogesterone (another type of progestin). Even if women took combined hormone replacement therapy for a long time (more than 5 years), the risks were reduced after stopping treatment. For women in their 50s, there was no additional risk of breast cancer with combined HRT that was stopped more than 5 years earlier.
There was little additional risk among women in their 60s and 70s. The results support those found in previous observational studies. They reaffirm that hormone replacement therapy is only related to a small increase in the risk of breast cancer. The study contradicts a recent analysis, which combined the results of 58 other studies and found that the risk of breast cancer with HRT was higher than expected.
That study was unable to make direct comparisons between types of HRT or between different treatment durations. Current research clarifies the types of hormone therapy that pose the lowest risk and could guide many women's choices. Estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy has the lowest risk, but it can only be taken by women who have had a hysterectomy. This work supports current UK guidelines on menopause, according to which the risk of breast cancer increases little with hormone replacement therapy only with estrogen.
Different types of combination hormone therapy had different risks. The lowest level was with dydrogesterone, which is not prescribed as often as other progestins with higher risks (norethisterone, medroxyprogesterone and levonorgestrel). An alternative to hormone replacement therapy, tibolone, was also linked to a low risk. However, the authors state that it may not be as effective as hormone replacement therapy in controlling menopausal symptoms.
and which is rarely prescribed. It's important for primary care physicians to discuss the benefits and risks of HRT with women who have problems with menopausal symptoms. Hormonal hormone therapy can have a drastic effect on these symptoms, and this research suggests that the risks of breast cancer are low. The results could guide the choice of hormone therapy and the length of time women take it.
The researchers organized formal and informal conversations with women to understand behavior in relation to hormone replacement therapy. They found that women were very likely to take the HRT that was prescribed for them. Some, who traveled abroad and skipped a prescription, continued treatment looking for another source of hormone therapy. More research could further examine the relationship between hormone therapy and breast cancer.
Questions include whether the use of hormone therapy has an impact on the survival rates of women with breast cancer. It would also be interesting to explore whether certain types of tumors are more related to HRT than others. Learn more about the Breast Cancer Now Generations study. The risks found in this study were lower than expected, especially compared to some recently published work that could have caused women to stop taking hormone replacement therapy.
Our work analyzed different combinations, different preparations and different durations of the TRH. It is critical that these results be shared, as is an exhaustive discussion between the GP and the patient about the risks and benefits of different HRT combinations. In general, the main findings do not differ significantly from previously published evidence with regard to risk patterns and the degree of risk conferred. The risk of breast cancer diagnosis was dependent on duration, being higher with combined hormone therapy, and decreased after treatment was stopped.
The risk did not increase with the use of topical estrogen and there was no evidence of a dosing effect with unopposed systemic treatment, as recently established by the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer (201). Thin women seem to be at greater risk because they are more exposed than those who are overweight or obese. Although the risk appeared to increase after relatively short exposure times (i.e., three years), this is probably due to the promotion of pre-existing, impalpable, hormone-sensitive cancers present at the time of onset. In the randomized, placebo-controlled WHI study, the time needed for a higher risk of diagnosis to arise was longer and was almost certainly due to the fact that these cancers were “screened” before randomization using a reference mammogram on all participants.
Probably the most important finding is that, compared to the synthetic progestins medroxyprogesterone acetate, norethisterone and levonorgestrel, combination preparations containing dydrogesterone were associated with a lower risk of diagnosis, supporting an increasing number of observational tests with similar findings. Jo Marsden and Hugo Pedder on behalf of the Medical Advisory Board of the British Menopause Society The results of this study generally confirm what has been seen before and is well established: that the use of a combined HRT of estrogen and progestogen is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, and this risk increases with the duration of use. However, what is reassuring is that, after stopping HRT, the increased risk of breast cancer returns mostly to that seen in people who do not use it. The study also found a small risk associated with the exclusive use of estrogen in hormone replacement therapy. Michael Jones, Senior Scientist of Genetics and Epidemiology at the Institute for Cancer Research This article provides detailed evidence of the risk of breast cancer with hormone therapy and can help make decisions before accepting hormone replacement therapy.
It is important to update the literature on hormone replacement therapy and make it accessible to people. The findings support previous observational studies. I hope they will influence healthcare professionals' decision-making about what hormone replacement therapy is right for each person and what should be prescribed. This decision should include weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each type of hormone replacement therapy and considering which types have the highest risk of breast cancer.
Sophie Craig, Senior Nurse at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust The mission of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is to improve the country's health and wealth through research. The NIHR Evidence is administered by the NIHR with a financial contribution from Health and Care Research Wales (Government of Wales). Fabian points out that there is some research showing that, in women who have been successfully treated for triple negative breast cancer in the past and who have had all of their breast tissue removed (in a double mastectomy), estrogen-only systemic hormone replacement therapy will not significantly increase the risk of recurrence. Here's what's important to know about systemic HRT (most often it's taken in pill form) and the risk of breast cancer.
Many experts say that women with a history of breast cancer should not undergo any type of systemic hormone therapy, especially if they have breast tissue (for example, if they had a lumorectomy instead of a double mastectomy). This was done so that researchers could analyze the relationship between hormone replacement therapy and the diagnosis of breast cancer. I also have friends and family who have faced the dilemma of taking hormone replacement therapy to alleviate the extreme symptoms of menopause compared to the potential risk of breast cancer. In addition, the relationship between the use of hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer progressively decreased as the years of abandoning hormone therapy increased.
Hormone replacement therapy with estrogen alone increases little or no risk of breast cancer, which you can take if you had a hysterectomy to remove your uterus. They also reported that the associated risk of breast cancer increased with older age, which could be attributed to relatively long-term use of hormone therapy. Transgender women and non-binary people who are assigned male sex at birth (AMAB) who take estrogen as a form of gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) are at greater risk of developing breast cancer compared to cisgender men. Increasingly, researchers are discovering that younger menopausal women with no history of breast cancer can experience significant improvements in their quality of life by alleviating menopause-related symptoms through hormone therapy.
Hormone therapy can be used to treat some types of cancer, such as certain types of breast cancer, that rely on hormones to spread. Estimates of the relative risk of breast cancer associated with the use of hormone therapy were obtained after stratifying all analyses according to the study, the age at the time of diagnosis, the time elapsed since menopause, body mass index, parity and the age of the woman when she was born their first child.
