Lifetime Risk of HRT and Cancer Calculated

Hormone replacement therapy to relieve menopause symptoms might not pose as large a risk for breast cancer as first believed, say Australian researchers.

Several research studies have linked the use of HRT with increased risk of beast cancer, but John Boyages from the New South Wales Breast Cancer Institute in Sydney says some women may have stopped their HRT unnecessarily, reported the Daily Telegraph Friday.

Boyages worked out the cumulative absolute lifetime risks to individual women who take HRT and found a woman aged 50 who does not take HRT has a risk of 6.1 percent, a one in 16 chance, of developing breast cancer over the next 30 years.

A 50-year-old woman who has taken combined HRT, the treatment most commonly prescribed, has her risk increased to 6.7 per cent, a one in 14 chance.

However, if a woman takes HRT for 10 years her risk rises to 7.7 percent, a one in 13 chance.

The findings are published in the British Medical Journal.