Reply to NIH Study regarding HRT and BReast cancer

Forum Index » Perimenopause, Menopause, and Beyond

Reply to "NIH Study regarding HRT and BReast cancer "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was just diagnosed with breast cancer. No family history of it. I'm 49 and was put on HRT 3 years ago to manage perimenopause symptoms.

Note, my breast cancer is early stage, and is treatable, so I will hopefully not be counted in any "mortality" numbers, but still it's so much to go through (surgery, radiation and guess what?! Bc my cancer is positive for hormone receptors, I have to take basically anti-estrogen meds for the next several years to make sure it doesn't come back).  Anecdotal, obviously, but HRT has definitely not been worth this.

I think the guidance will eventually shake out at not starting HRT until after full menopause.

Also, for the many women who have dense breast tissue (I do), that can hide the earliest detection of a breast tumor. Density naturally does go down in full menopause so that's another factor to consider if you're perimenopausal and taking HRT, that any cancer might be more difficult to spot.  Make sure you're vigilant about screenings.
[/quote]

I’m sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I’m glad they caught it early and I wish you the best.

I guess I’m confused because aren’t the HRT dosages really low? And aren’t women on a higher doses of estrogen earlier in life when most of us are on birth control? [b]And don’t estrogen rate skyrocket when we are pregnant and yet we don’t tend to see a correlation with women getting diagnosed with breast cancer after pregnancy. [/b]

It seems like it’s just too simple to say estrogen for hormone replacement therapy is causing cancer. The fact of the matter is breast cancer is rising in young women and yet very few young women are on replacement therapy, especially since the big study in the early 2000s hormone replacement therapy rates have plunged so there’s clearly more to the story on why younger women are getting breast cancer and it’s not just estrogen or hormone replacement therapy.

I really fear we’re missing the forest through the trees when people just lump these early rates of cancer as HRT when most women being diagnosed early, have not started HRT yet. [/quote]

Breast cancer rates absolutely do go up in the immediate period after pregnancy. It’s not “skyrocketing” rates (cancer statistics are rarely like that) but a clear statistically significant amount. Any internet search will confirm this.

I think after this wave of it being trendy to take hrt even for very little need (I have a friend with very minor menopause symptoms who was surprised that she was just handed a prescription for HRT by her gyn - she didn’t ask for it and didn’t really want it) there are going to be others like the 49 year old pp above. And the sad/ironic thing is that having to take estrogen blockers for hormone positive breast cancer makes all of those menopause symptoms even worse.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics