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The Women’s Health Initiative, in which researchers demonstrated that combination hormone therapy raised risk for breast cancer, excluded patients with previous breast cancer (Journal Watch Jul 26 2002). At that time, another randomized trial (the HABITS study, involving about 440 women) was in progress to examine whether hormone therapy was safe in women with previously treated breast cancer. This trial was halted in 2003 at a median follow-up of 2 years, because the rate of breast cancer recurrence was higher in the hormone therapy group than the control group (12% vs. 4%); preliminary results were reported in 2004 (Journal Watch Mar 2 2004). Now, the HABITS researchers report longer-term follow-up.
At a median follow-up of 4 years, the br…