UK NEWS

HRT IS SAFE MILLIONS OF WOMEN TOLD

MISLEADING: Health hazards have been blown out of proportion

Tuesday May 20,2008

By Jo Willey

HEALTH scares should not put women off hormone replacement therapy, experts said last night.

For women aged 50 to 59 in the early years of the menopause, scientists claim HRT does not raise the risk of heart disease and its impact on breast cancer is “minimal”.

They also reported that HRT is safe, effective and even helps debilitating symptoms like hot flushes. It was also found to maintain healthy bones without significant harmful side-effects.

Although certain types of HRT – containing combinations of oestrogen and progestagen – could slightly increase the chances of developing breast cancer, their effect was dwarfed by other risk factors.

The findings come just months after it emerged that around a million women may have abandoned HRT unnecessarily because of over-hyped health fears that proved to be wrong.

Last October, it was found that the number taking HRT fell from two million to one million after two major studies claimed it could cause breast cancer, strokes and heart disease.

HRT – in tablets, implants or patches – combats symptoms of the menopause, including hot flushes, vaginal dryness and night sweats.

The two main types contain the hormone oestrogen, or oestrogen and progestagen.

GPs in some parts of Britain refuse to prescribe it to treat menopausal symptoms.

In this latest report, Dr David Sturdee, one of the authors and president-elect of the International Menopause Society, said doctors should prescribe HRT more freely.

Current advice to health professionals is that HRT should only be offered to women with serious menopausal symptoms for the shortest time possible.

After five years doctors are not expected to continue prescribing the treatment without discussing the potential risks with the patient.

Speaking at the Science Media Centre in London, Dr Sturdee said: “We feel women should have it for as long as they need it to maintain their quality of life.”

Forty experts from around the world took part in a summit in Zurich, Switzerland, to discuss the latest evidence on the health risks of HRT. They presented their findings yesterday at the World Congress on the Menopause in Madrid.

The scientists said the health hazards of HRT had been blown out of proportion because of misleading results from an American investigation, the Women’s Health Initiative.

In 2002 the WHI produced data which appeared to show that women on HRT were at a heightened risk of breast cancer and heart disease.

It had a major impact, causing large numbers of post-menopausal women to avoid hormone replacement and convincing many doctors that the treatment was not safe.

Since its publication the research has been strongly criticised for presenting an unbalanced picture. WHI researchers were accused of focusing on the wrong group of women.

The average age of the participants was 63, whereas most women start taking HRT a decade earlier.

Dr Sturdee, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Solihull Hospital, West Midlands, said at least a million women in the UK had stopped taking HRT because of unfounded health fears and suffered as a result.

There were also anecdotal reports of doctors imposing a blanket ban on HRT, even this was at odds with current guidelines.

“Women’s confidence has been shattered,” added Dr Sturdee. “They are going to take a lot of convincing that the initial reports weren’t actually a reliable assessment of the data.”