Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 15, 1995 TAG: 9506150063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune NOTE: Above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Taking estrogen for less than five years showed no added risk.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, comes just six months after another major study found that estrogen plays an important role in reducing the risk of heart disease in older women.
Immediately, the new research sparked controversy. Medical experts who believe that most older women should take the hormone long-term to prevent both heart attacks and osteoporosis questioned the findings. However, the study's principal investigator, Graham Colditz of Harvard Medical School, said the findings were cause for women to reconsider estrogen's risks vs. its benefits.
The new study based its findings on the estrogen use and breast cancer experiences of 121,700 women participating in the long-running Nurse's Health Study, making it one of the largest research projects to explore the hormone-cancer link.
Among the study's findings:
Women taking estrogen or estrogen with progestin for five or more years and still on the hormone were at 46 percent higher risk of developing breast cancer than nonusers.
The risk varied depending on the woman's age and was greatest among current long-term hormone users over the age of 60. They had about a 70 percent greater chance of developing breast cancer than nonusers.
Women who had taken hormones in the past, even for five years or longer, but had stopped, were not at a significantly greater risk of developing breast cancer.
Women who had taken estrogen or estrogen with progestin for less than five years were not at increased risk of breast cancer.
The latter finding is especially significant to the average older woman taking estrogen. Typically, women use the hormone for less than three years to relieve hot flashes, vaginal dryness and other menopausal symptoms as their natural estrogen levels drop in menopause.
``I think this data is reassuring to women taking estrogen to relieve menopausal symptoms,'' Colditz said. ``They can look at this and say, it's basically safe to take the hormone for up to five years.''
Increasingly, though, doctors are recommending that women take hormones post-menopause for many years, even for the rest of their lives. That is because of studies showing that estrogen lowers an older woman's risk of heart disease by 50 percent, while at the same time preventing the bone loss that leads to the brittle bone disease called osteoporosis.
by CNB