foodconsumer.org: Hormone therapy raises breast cancer risk with a sign

Hormone therapy raises breast cancer risk with a sign
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admin on 10/12/2009 23:34:00
 
David Liu - davidl at foodconsumer dot org
Monday Oct 12, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- Women receiving hormone replacement
therapy should pay attention to breast tenderness as researchers from the
University of California - Los Angeles have linked it to elevated cancer risk. 
The new research was published in the Oct 12, 2009 issue of the Archives of
Internal medicine.
The study examined data from a clinical trial that tested
estrogen-plus-progestion combination therapy and found women who experienced
new-onset breast tenderness one year after they started the treatment were at
significantly higher risk for developing breast cancer than those who were given
the same therapy but did not have the tenderness.
For the study, Dr. Carolyn J. Crandall and colleagues looked at data from more
than 16,000 participants in the Women's Health Initiative
Estrogen-plus-Progestin Clinical Trial which was halted in July 2002 when an
elevated risk for invasive breast cancer was found in healthy menopausal women
on the hormone therapy.
Early studies have established the correlation. What made Crandall's study
unique is that the researchers linked breast tenderness to increased risk of
breast cancer in women on the hormone therapy.  Crandall and colleagues said
that they do not know why breast tenderness is linked to increased cancer risk
in the women on the combination therapy.
"Is it because the hormone therapy is causing breast-tissue cells to multiply
more rapidly, which causes breast tenderness and at the same time indicates
increased cancer risk? We need to figure out what makes certain women more
susceptible to developing breast tenderness during hormone therapy than other
women," Crandall said.
The trial involved 8,506 women given 0.625 mg of oral conjugated equine
estrogens and 2.5 mg of medroxyprogesterone acetate (2.5 mg) daily and 8,102
women given placebos.  Breast tenderness was self-reported at the beginning of
the trial and one year later and in the next 5.6 years, cases of invasive breast
cancer were recorded.
The researchers observed that women treated with hormones who reported no breast
tenderness at the beginning  were three times more likely to have breast
tenderness at the one-year end and those on hormone therapy who did report
breast tenderness at the start were 1.26 times more likely to have breast
tenderness than their counterparts on placebos.
They found women receiving hormone therapy who did not have breast tenderness at
the beginning but experienced tenderness at the first annual follow-up were at
48 percent higher risk of invasive breast cancer than those who on the hormone
replacement therapy but did not have breast tenderness at the one-year end.
"To our knowledge, no prior published studies have addressed whether there is an
association between CEE+MPA induced new-onset breast tenderness and breast
cancer risk," Crandall said.
Editor's comment: Try to avoid hormones by all means.  Using hormones is like
playing with fire!