Study: Hormone therapy increases breast cancer risk, mortality

[suzifrommd]

Study: Hormone therapy increases breast cancer risk, mortality

The Washington Post
By Eryn Brown, Published: March 30

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/study-upholds-breast-cancer-mortality-for-hormone-replacement/2013/03/30/c1f9b824-9976-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html?hpid=z5

The study, published Friday by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, concludes that the prognosis for cancers related to hormone replacement therapy is just as dire as for other breast cancers. As a result, women who turn to the treatment are more likely to die of breast cancer than their non-hormone-taking peers.

...

The new findings apply only to women who take estrogen and progestin, a synthesized form of the natural hormone progesterone. Women who have had hysterectomies can take estrogen alone, a regimen that doesn't seem to increase breast cancer risk. But those who still have a uterus must take both estrogen and progestin to avoid developing endometrial cancer.

[Joelene9]

  This study was for mainly post menopausal cis women who took Estrogen with the progestins.  We M-F transitioners have a different analog going here since most of us were intact males.  The female system with the uterus and ovaries secrete other hormones when the estrogens and progestins levels increase that is not present or has very little in the male body.  My Dr. as well as those of others on this forum had remove progestins from our prescriptions within the past couple of years.  Earlier studies had the progestins were more likely the culprit of increased breast cancer if added to the estrogens in the HRT regimen. 
  The post menopausal women actually needed the progestins in most cases to be effective with their symptoms. 

  However, we as a group must be vigilant with the self-exams and seeing the doctor more often than most people for those other reasons as well.  This is also a warning for those who wanted to start transitioning using HRT.  Anecdotal evidence here is the only thing we have at the moment.  There were no real surveys with the larger numbers of us in our group lasting more than 1-2 years.  Some of those surveys in the past turned out to be politically motivated quackery!  I know of only 3-5 cases with breast cancers in the transitioners over the past 40 years.  Some of those coming from families with a known higher risk of breast cancers. 
 
  Joelene

[peky]

the data just does not add up..while there was a difference in breast cancer incidence between control and estrogen+progestin..the difference is not that great

incidence was higher in estrogen plus progestin users than in nonusers (0.60% vs 0.42%, annualized rate, respectively; HR = 1.55, 95% CI = 1.41 to 1.70, P < .001).

Mouch to do about nothing if you ask me...do not panick

[peky]

J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care. 2013 Apr;39(2):80-8. doi: 10.1136/jfprhc-2012-100508.
Does hormone replacement therapy (HRT) cause breast cancer? An application of causal principles to three studies.
Shapiro S, Farmer RD, Stevenson JC, Burger HG, Mueck AO, Gompel A.
SourceVisiting Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Based principally on findings in three studies, the Collaborative Reanalysis (CR), the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), and the Million Women Study, it is claimed that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is an established cause of breast cancer. The authors have previously reviewed those studies (Parts 1-4). The WHI findings were first published in 2002, following which the use of HRT rapidly declined. A correspondingly rapid decline in the incidence of breast cancer has been reported, and attributed to the drop in the use of HRT. The evidence, however, is conflicting.

METHODS: Using generally accepted causal criteria, in this article (Part 5) the authors evaluate reported trends in the incidence of breast cancer.

RESULTS: The evidence to suggest a correlated decline in the incidence of breast cancer following a decline in the use of HRT has not adequately satisfied the criteria of time order, detection bias, confounding, statistical stability and strength of association, internal consistency, and external consistency; biological plausibility is difficult to assess.

CONCLUSIONS: Based on the observed trends in the incidence of breast cancer following the decline in HRT use, the ecological evidence is too limited either to support or refute the possibility that HRT causes breast cancer.