'Tis but a scratch: a critical review of the Women's Health Initiative evidence associating menopausal hormone therapy with the risk of breast cancer.

ABSTRACT: Use of menopausal hormone therapy (HT) fell precipitously after 2002, largely as a result of the Women's Health Initiative's report claiming that the combination of conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) and medroxyprogesterone acetate increased breast cancer risk and did not improve quality of life. More recently, Women's Health Initiative (WHI) publications acknowledge HT as the most effective treatment for managing menopausal vasomotor symptoms and report that CEE alone reduces the risk of breast cancer by 23% while reducing breast cancer death by 40%. Their sole remaining concern is a small increase in breast cancer incidence with CEE and medroxyprogesterone acetate (1 per 1,000 women per year) but with no increased risk of breast cancer mortality. This article closely examines evidence that calls even this claim of breast cancer risk into serious question, including the WHI's reporting of nonsignificant results as if they were meaningful, a misinterpretation of its own data, and the misleading assertion that the WHI's findings have reduced the incidence of breast cancer in the United States. A generation of women has been deprived of HT largely as a result of this widely publicized misinterpretation of the data. This article attempts to rectify this misunderstanding, with the goal of helping patients and physicians make informed joint decisions about the use of HT.

Hormone replacement therapy: real concerns and false alarms.

From 2002 to 2008, reports from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) claimed that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) significantly increased the risks of breast cancer development, cardiac events, Alzheimer disease, and stroke. These claims alarmed the public and health professionals alike, causing an almost immediate and sharp decline in the numbers of women receiving HRT. However, the actual data in the published WHI articles reveal that the findings reported in press releases and interviews of the principal investigators were often distorted, oversimplified, or wrong. This review highlights the history of research on HRT, including a timeline of studies that have or have not found a link between HRT and breast cancer; discusses how to distinguish important, robust findings from those that are trivial; closely examines the WHI findings on HRT and breast cancer, most of which are weak or statistically insignificant; reviews the current thinking about possible links of HRT with cardiovascular disease and cognitive functioning; and reports research on the benefits of HRT, notably relief of menopausal symptoms, that affect a woman's quality of life. On these complicated matters, physicians and the public must be cautious about accepting "findings by press release" in determining whether to prescribe or take HRT.

Hormone replacement therapy: the debate should continue.

Recent reports attributing a significant increased risk of breast cancer development, cardiac events, and Alzheimer's disease to the administration of estrogen-progestin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) require critical review, not blind acceptance. An appreciation of the numbers used to generate these conclusions, the abundance and strength of the studies that do not support them, the small size of the effect reported, even if arguably valid, and the persisting reported benefit of HRT on longevity should alert clinicians to the risks of accepting these studies as guidelines for patient management. The additional report from this same group that HRT has no effect on health-related quality of life deserves a good laugh, not serious consideration.