Combined Hormone Therapy and Health-Related Quality of Life

Data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) suggested that combined hormone therapy (HT) does not have clinically important effects on health-related quality of life (QOL; JW May 9 2003). The WHI, however, used only generic QOL measures, which do not fully reflect condition- or outcome-specific changes in QOL. In this trial, more than 3700 women who had intact uteri or had undergone subtotal hysterectomy were randomized to daily oral combined HT (conjugated equine estrogen, 0.625 mg; medroxyprogesterone, 2.5/5.0 mg) or matched placebo. QOL was assessed using both menopause-specific QOL and symptom measures and generic QOL measures.

After 1 year, data were available for 2130 women (mean age at randomization, 64). Scores on three components …