What you need to know about menopause therapy and breast cancer
In the past decade, there have been breakthroughs globally, regionally and locally in breast cancer screening and treatment.
What you need to know:
- Menopausal hormones come in the form of pills, patches, gels, or injections.
- They constitute either only oestrogen or a combination of oestrogen and progesterone.
For years, women in menopause and postmenopause have opted for synthetic versions of hormones to mitigate menopausal symptoms.
The hormones come in the form of pills, patches, gels, or injections, constituting either only oestrogen or a combination of oestrogen and progesterone.
But what are the risks of using these synthetic hormones?
In an earlier interview, Dr John Ong’echa, an obstetrician and gynecologist, warned that hormone replacement therapy predisposes women to breast cancer.
In 2019, The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal,combined data from 58 studies and focused on long-term effects of menopausal hormone therapy.
The researchers looked at the women who had used oestrogen alone or a combination therapy against those who had never used it.
The data showed women who initiated menopausal hormone therapy shortly after menopause had a significantly increased risk of invasive breast cancer. Those who used combination therapy were even at higher risk than those who were on only oestrogen.
Hazard ratio
Notably, those who were exposed to the therapy for many years were at greater risk of developing breast cancer. For example, women who had used combination therapy for one to four years faced a hazard ratio of 1:60. This increased to 2:26 for those who had used it for 10–14 years.
Another study, published in the National Library of Medicine in April 2023, points to decreased breast cancer incidence and mortality for women who are on oestrogen therapy but had previously undergone hysterectomy – partial or total surgical removal of the uterus.
Comparably, the use of oestrogen combined with progestin increases breast cancer incidence, which persists through two decades, the study found. Obese menopausal women are even at greater risk of developing breast cancer.
Findings on the correlation between obesity and breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women published in BMC Women's Health, warn of up to 26 per cent risk of developing breast cancer among obese postmenopausal women.
But how does oestrogen accelerate the occurrence of breast cancer?
Experts explain in a Harvard Gazette, that oestrogen “acts as a catalyst for cancer growth because it stimulates the division and proliferation of breast tissue, a process that carries the risk for cancer-causing mutations”.
