Alert: research follow-up links hormone replacement therapy to excess breast cancer risks

Researchers continue to try to determine how Estrogen-Progestin Hormone Therapy affects risk of breast cancer and breast cancer deaths.  In an important research development, the eleven-year follow-up to the Women's Health Initiative shows marginally higher breast cancer death rates in women who took combination Estrogen-Progestin hormone therapy.  This is also known as "combination HT."

The initial WHI findings suggested that risk for invasive breast cancer was limited to women who had used hormone therapy (HT) longer than 5 years. Now, an 11 year follow-up reports on breast cancer mortality in WHI participants.  The follow-up shows that breast cancers in women who received combination HT were more likely to be node positive, and that death rate was marginally raised with use of HT.