Lung Cancer More Deadly With Hormone Pills
A study suggests that there is more news that hormone therapy for menopause symptoms may prove fatal in women taking estrogen-progestin pills.
According to results reported Saturday, hormone users that develop lung cancer were 60 percent more likely to die from the disease than women who were not taking the pills.
Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles said that the new findings mean that smokers should stop taking hormones, and those who have not yet started hormones should give it careful thought.
This is the latest of findings since the Women’s Health Initiative study was stopped in 2002 when researchers saw more breast cancers in those on Prempro, the estrogen-progestin pill.
The new study looked at non-small-cell lung cancer and found no difference in the number of lung cancers that developed in hormone users after five years on the pills and over two years of follow-up.
However, lung cancer proved fatal in 46 percent of hormone users that developed it, versus 27 percent of those given placeboes.
"It’s another piece of evidence to suggest that hormone replacement therapy should be used with great caution," said Dr. Richard Schilsky, a cancer specialist at the University of Chicago and president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Doctors said that women who take hormones already are advised to use the lowest dose for the shortest time possible. "Women almost certainly shouldn’t be using combined hormone therapy and tobacco at the same time," Chlebowski said.
Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society said that there still have only been 106 lung cancer deaths in the study so far, which is too few to make conclusions about risk.
Wyeth’s Dr. Joseph Camardo said that most women no longer use hormones the way they used too. In the Women’s Health Initiative study, women started on them at an average age of 63 and took them for over five years. Camardo said that now the typical age of starting is 51 to 54, and average use is two years. He said that the same risks might not apply with the new patterns of use.
Lung cancer is the world’s top cancer killer. In the U.S., there are over 215,000 new cases and close to 162,000 deaths from it last year.
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