Menopause News:

Study: Hormone Therapy Helps With Menopausal Symptoms, But Ups Risk

Short-term hormone therapy is associated with increases in quality of life for women with menopausal symptoms, but it may shorten life expectancy, according to a study reported in the August 9/23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Deciding whether to undergo hormone therapy is difficult for such women due to the complexity of balancing the risks and benefits of this treatment. Hormone therapy is an effective treatment for menopausal symptoms and decreases the risks of osteoporosis and colorectal cancer, but it may also increase the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer, according to the study.

Nananda F. Col, M.D., of Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., and colleagues examined which women would benefit from two-years of hormone therapy by weighing symptom relief against the risks of causing disease.

Using a computer model, the researchers simulated the effects of short-term hormone therapy on both life expectancy and quality-adjusted life expectancy, a measurement of the number of high quality that can be expected over the course of a lifetime among 50-year-old menopausal women who had not had a hysterectomy.

The researchers found that among women without any symptoms of menopause, short-term hormone therapy was associated with overall losses in life expectancy and quality-adjusted life expectancy of one to three months, depending on their risk of cardiovascular disease. Women with mild to severe menopausal symptoms gained three to four months of life expectancy or seven to eight months of quality-adjusted life expectancy, respectively.

“Whether short-term hormone therapy is beneficial or harmful depends primarily on a woman’s treatment goals, the severity of her estrogen-responsive symptoms and her cardiovascular disease risk,” the authors concluded. “If the goal is to maximize longevity, hormone therapy is not advisable, since it is associated with small losses in life expectancy. However, if the goal is to maximize quality-adjusted life expectancy, hormone therapy can be beneficial, especially among women at low cardiovascular disease risk…even when menopausal symptoms are mild.”

Source: Medical Week staff, week of August 9, 2004