Word: breast
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...number of women on combined estrogen and progestin therapy was comparatively modest. For another, the rise in risk only became striking after four or more years of continuous hormone use, which further reduced the pool of subjects. In the end, out of a total of 2,082 cases of breast cancer, 101 occurred among women who were currently taking estrogen-progestin--and of these, a striking 39 occurred among the roughly 3,200 women who had continued to take both hormones for four or more years...
...rise in risk was most pronounced among lean women, who accounted for two-thirds of the 39 cases. But there was good news too: after women stopped taking the hormones, their breast-cancer risk promptly fell...
...assumed that estrogen and estrogen-progestin were the same," says UCLA breast surgeon Dr. Susan Love, a prominent critic of hormone-replacement therapy. "Suddenly we are starting to get evidence that they're not." Like many others, Love is eagerly awaiting the findings of a large clinical trial launched by the Women's Health Initiative in 1993. That trial, which involves nearly 30,000 women between the ages of 50 and 79, is specifically designed to assess the pros and cons of estrogen-progestin therapy. The first results won't be ready for five more years...
...make do with the limited information they have. "When you take hormones," says Dr. Dorothy Gohdes, an internist in Albuquerque, N.M., "you have to remember that you don't get them for nothing. There are trade-offs." A woman whose family history places her at high risk for breast cancer might decide to avoid hormone therapy even for the short term, for example, while a woman at high risk for osteoporosis or heart disease would probably be more willing to take her chances...
...example, recommends the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs as the front-line treatment of choice for women whose blood lipids remain high despite diet and exercise. Similarly, there are new drugs designed to combat bone loss, including estrogen look-alikes that appear to act as antigrowth factors in the breast. As new and better drugs become available, the case for long-term hormone replacement will weaken...