By Amy Orciari Herman

Edited by David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, and Lorenzo Di Francesco, MD, FACP, FHM

Menopausal hormone therapy does not put women at increased risk for death, according to long-term follow-up from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) randomized trials published in JAMA.

In the WHI, nearly 17,000 postmenopausal women with a uterus were randomized to receive either daily conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) plus medroxyprogesterone acetate, or placebo. An additional 11,000 women who'd had a hysterectomy were randomized to CEE alone or placebo.

During 18 years' follow-up which included roughly 57 years of treatment and 1112 years of post-intervention follow-up 27% of the women died. Neither combination hormone therapy nor CEE alone was associated with all-cause mortality during the intervention or post-intervention phase. Findings were similar for cardiovascular and cancer mortality.

An editorialist calls the findings "compelling and reassuring." She concludes: "For women with troubling vasomotor symptoms, premature menopause, or early-onset osteoporosis, hormone therapy appears to be both safe and efficacious."

More here:
Menopausal Hormone Therapy Not Associated with Mortality ...

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