You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Therapeutics
Oestrogen plus progestogen increased risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebm.8.6.172

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    (2003) JAMA 289, 3243. Chlebowski RT, Hendrix SL, Langer RD, et al.. Influence of estrogen plus progestin on breast cancer and mammography in healthy postmenopausal women: the Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Trial.. ;. :. –53.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

    
 
 QUESTION: In postmenopausal women, does oestrogen plus progestogen hormone therapy (HT) increase the risk of abnormal mammographic results and diagnoses of breast cancer?

    Design

    Randomised (allocation concealed*), blinded (clinicians, participants, data collectors, outcome assessors, and monitoring committee),* placebo controlled trial with a mean 5.6 year follow up (Women’s Health Initiative [WHI]).

    Setting

    40 US clinical centres.

    Participants

    16 608 postmenopausal women who were 50–79 years of age (mean age 63.3 y). Exclusion criteria were previous hysterectomy, breast cancer, or probable survival <3 years. Follow up data were available for 15 931 women (95.9%).

    Intervention

    Women were allocated to 1 daily tablet of conjugated equine oestrogen, 0.625 mg, and medroxyprogesterone acetate, 2.5 mg (n=8506), or placebo (n=8102).

    Main outcome measures

    Incidence of breast cancer (total, invasive, and in situ) and abnormal mammogram results.

    Main results

    Analysis was by intention to treat. Women …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Sources of funding: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Wyeth-Ayerst Research Laboratories.

    • For correspondence: Dr R T Chlebowski, Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute, Torrance, CA, USA. rchlebowski{at}rei.edu

    • Abstract and commentary also appear in ACP Journal Club.

    • ↵* See glossary.