When Should Hormone Therapy Be Continued?

See also:

Menopausal Hormone Therapy: Where Do We Go from Here?

When Should Hormone Therapy Be Discontinued?

Recent findings of the combination hormone therapy arm of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) will change the way menopausal HT is used in women without hysterectomies (Journal Watch Women's Health Aug 7 2002). The WHI findings provide convincing evidence that long-term use of the Prempro formulation elevates the risks for blood clots, heart attack, stroke, and invasive breast cancer. Although the absolute risks for these adverse outcomes in an individual woman are very low, clinicians and their menopausal and postmenopausal patients currently using HT need to ask themselves why combination HT was prescribed and whether this therapy sho…