A new study of women having hormone therapy after menopause found a link between a certain type of treatment and higher rates of breast cancer before the age of 55.

A new study has found that women undergoing hormone therapy for menopause may face varying risks of breast cancer depending on the type of treatment. The research focused on women under 55 and distinguished between those who still have their uterus and those who do not. 

Women who received estrogen alone, typically after hysterectomy, showed a reduced risk of breast cancer. In contrast, those who took both estrogen and progesterone, usually because they still have their uterus, experienced a slight increase in breast cancer risk. Experts emphasize that hormone therapy remains an effective treatment for menopausal symptoms, and decisions should be made in consultation with healthcare providers, considering individual risk factors.

Study finds link between hormone therapy and breast cancer

In this morning's Health Watch, a new study of women having hormone therapy to treat menopause symptoms found a link between a certain type of treatment and higher rates of breast cancer before the age of 55. CBS News Medical Contributor Dr. Celine Gounder is Editor-at-Large for Public Health at KFF Health News. Good morning to you, and I have to take a breath now because I know a lot of women watching are having whiplash hearing that headline because they've been told one thing, told something else, and now we're back into this sort of nebulous area because the devil is really in the details. So break it down for us. This is another great example of science evolves. We heard a lot about that during COVID. This is another example of that, where there was a study that was published in the early 2000s called the Women's Health Initiative Study, where they looked at hormone replacement therapy, but what distinguishes that study from this new one that was just published is the age of the women in the study and how long it had been since menopause before they started hormone replacement. So in that study, the women were significantly older, 60s, 70s, and they may not have started hormone replacement therapy until 10 or so years after going through menopause. This newer research is focused on what actually happens in real life, which is women who go through menopause in their 40s or 50s start treatment around that age, and what are the risks and benefits in that setting. So what are the findings? Break it down for us. So what they found, they were focused on women under the age of 55, and they broke it down into two groups, women who still have their uterus, so have not had a hysterectomy, versus women who do not have a uterus anymore. And so for the women who do still have a uterus, you have to give estrogen plus progesterone together. Estrogen alone will cause thickening of the uterine lining, which can cause a different kind of cancer, what we call endometrial cancer, so you have to give the combination. In women who no longer have a uterus, you can give estrogen alone, and so it does matter here. What they found is estrogen alone reduced the risk of breast cancer. It's the progesterone that appears in the women who need to take both. There seems to be a slight increase in risk in breast cancer if you also took progesterone. All right, so the study also found that there's another type of hormone therapy that may actually lower the risk of breast cancer. Tell us about that. Yeah, so that's the estrogen alone, and I think this is going to be surprising to a lot of people because a lot of women think that you'll take estrogen and that's actually going to increase your risk of breast cancer, and that's not what we found in this study. And I think the really important takeaway here is that hormone replacement therapy can be very safe. It is effective. In fact, it is the most effective treatment for a lot of perimenopausal symptoms, and you really need to sit down and talk to your doctor, depending on family history and other things, what is the appropriate thing for you. Yeah, important news at the right time. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Dr. Gounder, always great to have you. Thank you.

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