BMJ 2002;325:1243 ( 23 November )

Letters

Hormone replacement therapy

    Logically, long term hormone replacement therapy cannot be recommended
    Public health concern is serious

Logically, long term hormone replacement therapy cannot be recommended

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Stevenson and Whitehead are unable or unwilling to draw the logical conclusion from the women's health initiative study. 1 2 Long term hormone replacement therapy cannot be recommended as the risks associated with it are more than the benefits.

The editorial shows the difficulty we have in telling women the truth. Hormone replacement has been recommended to women more on promises and is based on very poor evidence of benefits. Even the recommendation for prevention of fracture is based on weak evidence.3 Stevenson and Whitehead urge the use of non-medroxyprogesterone based preparations and lower doses of equine oestrogen on a theoretical basis. I hope that general practitioners won't get into the farce of changing treatment on the basis of this advice and giving the patients the impression that they know what they are doing.

The authors point out that the oestrogen alone arm of the study is still continuing. This . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

Hormone replacement therapy
John C Stevenson and Malcolm I Whitehead
BMJ 2002 325: 113-114. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Rapid Responses:

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bmj.com, 22 Nov 2002 [Full text]
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bmj.com, 26 Nov 2002 [Full text]
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