CHICAGO --- Using hormone replacement therapy during menopause increases a woman's risk for developing some types of breast cancer that occur rarely, but not the more commonly occurring ductal carcinoma that remains confined to the site of origin or invasive ductal or lobular cancer.
These are the findings of a study by researchers from Northwestern University Medical School and the Mayo Clinic that appears in the June 9 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Susan M. Gapstur, assistant professor of preventive medicine, and Monica Morrow, M.D., professor of surgery, of Northwestern, and Thomas A. Sellers, of the Mayo Clinic, studied over 37,100 postmenopausal women in the Iowa Women's Health Study to determine if use of hormone replacement therapy was associated with subsequent risk for specific types of breast cancer.
"We observed a positive, dose-response relationship between duration of postmenopausal hormone use and incidence of breast cancer with a favorable prognosis; this relationship appeared to be stronger for current users compared with past users," the researchers said.
Conversely, among the women studied, the incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive ductal or lobular carcinoma was not related to ever having used hormones. However, the data suggest a modest increased risk for invasive ductal or lobular carcinoma among women who, at the beginning of the study, reported current hormone replacement therapy use for five or fewer years.
The authors reported that the risk for favorable breast cancers for women who ever used hormone replacement therapy for five or fewer years was 1.8 times greater than for women who never used hormone replacement therapy. Women who used hormone replacement therapy for more than five years had 2.6 times the risk.
The association of hormone replacement therapy with breast cancer is
controversial. According to the researchers, despi
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Contact: Elizabeth Crown
e-crown@nwu.edu
312-503-8928
Northwestern University
8-Jun-1999