HRT responsible for 1000 deaths in Britain from ovarian cancer

Apr 19 2007

In the latest scare over hormone replacement therapy (HRT) it is thought a thousand British women may have died from ovarian cancer since 1991 because they were using the therapy.

The shocking figures have come to light as the results of one of the biggest investigations to date on the links between HRT and cancer have been released.

Findings from the "Million Women Study" suggest that as a result of HRT use 1,300 extra cases of ovarian cancer were diagnosed in the UK between 1991 and 2005; of this number 1,000 women died from the disease.

Previous research has suggested a link between HRT and an increased risk of breast and womb cancer.

In real terms the figures from the study mean that over a period of five years there is likely to be one extra case of ovarian cancer among every 2,500 women receiving hormone replacement therapy; while for every 3,300 women on HRT, there is estimated to be one additional death from ovarian cancer.

Experts experts involved in the study have however voiced their concern over the strength of the association between HRT and ovarian cancer and say the findings clearly demonstrates the cancer risks of taking HRT.

They say when ovarian, endometrial and breast cancer are taken together, use of HRT results in a material increase in these common cancers of 63 per cent.

Ovarian cancer is the fourth most common female cancer in the UK and each year about 6,700 women develop the disease and 4,600 die from it.

The Million Women Study was funded in the main by Cancer Research UK; it recruited 948,576 postmenopausal women, representing a quarter of all women aged 50 to 64 in the UK.

Around a third of the women were undergoing HRT, and a further fifth had received it in the past.

HRT is used to combat the unpleasant symptoms of the menopause such as hot flushes, vaginal dryness and night sweats.

Introduced in the 1970s it was strongly advocated by doctors and many women claimed that it transformed their lives.

As many as one million women in Britain are estimated to be still on HRT.

This latest research does however indicate that a woman's risk of suffering ovarian cancer returns to normal within a few years of stopping HRT.

Some experts however have challenged the results of the study and say it grossly overestimates the breast cancer risk, is not science, and the findings 'fly in the face of cancer biology'.