"It's not a lifetime of risk they are getting" with this treatment, said
Robert Spirtas, a contraception and reproductive health specialist at the NIH
and senior author of the study.
Thousands of women taking so-called HRT treatment were advised to stop in
July after a separate federal human trial found the most popular form of HRT --
Wyeth's PremPro -- raises the risk of cancer.
Spirtas' NIH study of about 3800 post-menopausal women reported Friday found
that women taking PremPro or equivalent drugs -- a mix of the hormones estrogen
and progestin -- were 1.54 times more likely to get breast cancer than their
counterparts not on the treatment.
Yet the risk begins to drop to normal just six months after stopping combined
hormone treatment, according to study results published in the December 2002
issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
The NIH studied post-menopausal women on hormone replacement therapy for five
years or more.
Some women only take the therapy for several months when they have severe
symptoms like hot flashes and vaginal dryness, while others have been on it for
15 to 20 years, Spirtas said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has strengthened warnings on Wyeth's PremPro and Premarin, which uses
only estrogen.
Wyeth has said prescriptions for PremPro have fallen 40 percent, and those
for Premarin have slumped 15 percent since news of those studies emerged.
Doctors still disagree on whether combined HRT, taken by an estimate 6
million U.S. women, is too risky to be widely prescribed.
