Therapist Unlimited Blog

A recent study conducted in Denmark has shown that those who took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause had a significantly higher risk of developing ovarian cancer than those who did not.
In a study conducted on 910,000 Danish women aged 50 to 79 for an average of 8 years (equivalent of 7.3 million women-years).
During that time 3,068 incident ovarian malignancies (2,681 of which were epithelial cancers) were diagnosed.
Epithelial ovarian cancers are those that start on the surface layer of the ovaries as opposed to in the eggs (germ cell cancers).
At the end of the follow up period, 63 per cent of the women had never used HRT, 22 per cent had used it but were using it no longer, and 9 per cent were still using it.
Based on the study it as also discovered that compared to women who never took HRT, current and previous users had a higher risk of developing an ovarian cancer (relative risk, 1.38 and 1.15, respectively).
The research also yielded results that the incidence rates in current and never users of hormones were 0.52 and 0.40 per 1000 years, respectively, an absolute risk increase of 0.12 per 1000 years.

Women who undergo hormone therapy need to be careful since the medical procedure could lead to ovarian cancer.

With the findings, the researcher concluded that regardless of the duration of use, the formulation, estrogen dose, regimen, progestin type, and route of administration, hormone therapy was associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer.
These findings appear to confirm those from the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study, which was stopped early because researchers found an increased risk of ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and other diseases linked to use of HRT.