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Current evidence about the effect of hormone replacement therapy on the incidence of major conditions in postmenopausal women
Author(s) -
Beral Valerie,
Reeves Gillian,
Banks Emily
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
bjog: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.157
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1471-0528
pISSN - 1470-0328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2005.00541.x
Subject(s) - epidemiology , unit (ring theory) , incidence (geometry) , citation , medicine , breast cancer , library science , cancer , family medicine , history , political science , psychology , law , mathematics education , physics , optics , computer science
The last few years have seen an astonishing growth in the availability of unbiased information about the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on the risk of major illnesses developing in postmenopausal women. Two years ago we reviewed the evidence that was then available from four randomised controlled trials, – 5 but now results from a further five trials have been published. – 10 The largest and most influential trials are the two arms of Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), set up specifically to investigate whether use of HRT reduced the incidence of coronary heart disease in otherwise healthy women. It randomised 10,739 women who had had a hysterectomy to placebo or 0.625 mg equine oestrogen and 16,608 women who had not had a hysterectomy to placebo or 0.625 mg equine oestrogen and 2.5 mg medroxyprogesterone acetate. The WISDOM trial, based in the UK with a similar design to the US-based WHI, was closed in October 2002. No other large randomised controlled trial of the effects of HRT is now in progress, and so it is timely to review what has been learned — as well as what cannot be learned — from the trials.