Hormone Therapy Is Associated with Excess Lung Cancer Mortality in WHI Participants

In the Women's Health Initiative (WHI; JW Gen Med Jul 26 2002) — in which more than 16,000 postmenopausal women with intact uteri were randomized to receive estrogen plus progesterone or placebo — the hormone group had a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer than did the placebo group. Investigators now present a post hoc analysis (using data from 5.6 years of the trial plus 2.4 years of additional follow-up) of lung cancer incidence and mortality in WHI participants.

The incidence of lung cancer in the hormone group began to exceed that in the placebo group after about 5 years, and the gap continued to widen — driven entirely by excess non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) — but did not reach statistical significance b…