Among the many unanswered questions about hormones prescribed for menopause is whether a woman's health risks change after she stops taking the pills. A new study shows that virtually all the benefits disappear but that a slightly higher risk for breast and other cancers persists for at least three years after stopping the drugsThe data come from a major study by the Women's Health Initiative that looked at more than 16,000 women who used the estrogen and progestin combination drug Prempro, made by Wyeth. Reporting in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the study's investigators urge caution in interpreting the results, noting that a woman's individual risk remains small. The excess cancer risk among former hormone users translates to an added annual risk of 0.3 percent for an individual woman, or three additional cases of breast or other cancers a year among 1,000 women.
The findings don't change current recommendations for hormone use, which advise that women consider using hormones only if they have moderate to severe hot flashes and other symptoms, and only at the lowest dose and for the shortest possible time.
"What we found in the study is quite consistent with the current guidelines,"said Gerardo Heiss, the report's lead author and a professor of epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "There is no reason for alarm. The absolute risk is of small magnitude."
One of the biggest benefits of hormone drugs, an improvement in bone health, all but disappeared during the three years after women stopped taking the drugs. But other risks, like blood clots, stroke and heart attacks originally seen among older hormone users in the study, also quickly dropped back to normal rates once the women stopped taking the drugs.
