HRT does not prevent heart disease

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7411.359-a

BMJ 2003;327:359 (16 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7411.359-a

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HRT does not prevent heart disease

Janice Hopkins Tanne

New York

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

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) should not be used to preventcoronary heart disease, experts advise, after a study showedthat it does not prevent the disease and almost doubles a woman'srisk during the first year of use.

Furthermore, HRT does not slow progression of established coronaryartery disease.

These findings come from two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr JoAnn Manson and colleagues reported final results of thearm of the Women's Health Initiative trial that compared combinedoestrogen and progestogen treatment with placebo ( 2003;349: 523-34). The trial, sponsored by the US National Institutesof Health, was stopped in 2002 because the risks of treatmentexceeded the benefits ( BMJ 2002;325: 61[Free Full Text]).

"There was no clear heart protection. No subgroup clearly showed evidence of heart disease protection," said Dr Manson, theprincipal investigator and chairwoman of preventive medicineat Harvard's Brigham . . . [Full text of this article]

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