Truth: Hormone replacement therapy increases your risk of breast cancer
Monday, October 19, 2009 at 19:38 TRUE. According to the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy Trials, an estrogen-plus-progestin replacement therapy increases the risk of breast cancer, along with heart disease, stroke and blood clots.
The WHI clinical trials, launched in 1991, studied a group of 161,808 generally healthy postmenopausal women for the effects of HRT, diet modification and calcium and vitamin D supplement use on heart disease, fractures, and breast and colorectal cancer. Results from the trial on HRT, published in 2002, found that while the estrogen-only replacement therapy did not increase breast cancer risk, the risks far outweighed the benefits in the estrogen-plus-progestin study. Overall, there was a 24% increase in the risk for breast cancer due to estrogen-plus-progestin.
Learn more about this type of scientific study and NBCC’s involvement in clinical trials by reading about NBCC’s Clinical Trials Initiative.
Finally, in each breast cancer post this month I’m going to make this point, and I want you to listen very carefully:
Did you just get the bad news? Get a second opinion now. Do not let anybody rush you into anything and that includes a biopsy. Do not do it.
The only reason I sit here today is because I had the good fortune to get a second opinion before I proceeded with anything. The first opinion was wildly wrong, and could well have cost me my life!
Get a second, or even a third opinion - preferably out of your area.
maven