Drug News
Hormone therapy raises risk of breast cancer recurrence
By Ben Wasserman
Mar 25, 2008 - 6:12:42 PM

STUESDAY March 25, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) increases risk of recurrence of breast cancer, according to a new study in the journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study showed that women with breast cancer who used hormone replacement therapy were twice as likely as those who did not to have recurrence of the disease.

For the study, Lars Holmberg and colleagues at Kings College London followed 442 Scandinavian women who had had breast cancer and half of them had received HRT.

They found women who had had breast cancer were 14 percent more likely to have the disease again if they used hormone replacement therapy or HRT.

An early study found hormone replacement therapy does not only increase the risk of breast cancer recurrence, but also the risk persists even years after the patients stopped using HRT.

It's well known that HRT increases not only risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, but also heart risk.  The findings prompted researchers to terminate a major US study earlier than planned.