Re: Effect of hormone replacement therapy on cardiovascular events in recently postmenopausal women: randomised trial
Sir, Dr Schierbeck is correct that the methods of her paper made clear that this was a secondary analysis of a trial done to test a different hypothesis.
However whoever wrote the BMJ press release, which includes the following sentence, did not.
“So authors from Denmark carried out a randomised trial over 10 years with additional six years of follow-up to establish whether HRT can reduce cardiovascular risk if it is started early after menopause”.
This is misleading and has encouraged naive journalists to write headlines suggesting that the cardiovascular risks of HRT have somehow been proven to have been false. Even Dr Schierbeck and her colleagues would surely not claim this.
Rapid Response:
Re: Effect of hormone replacement therapy on cardiovascular events in recently postmenopausal women: randomised trial
Sir, Dr Schierbeck is correct that the methods of her paper made clear that this was a secondary analysis of a trial done to test a different hypothesis.
However whoever wrote the BMJ press release, which includes the following sentence, did not.
“So authors from Denmark carried out a randomised trial over 10 years with additional six years of follow-up to establish whether HRT can reduce cardiovascular risk if it is started early after menopause”.
This is misleading and has encouraged naive journalists to write headlines suggesting that the cardiovascular risks of HRT have somehow been proven to have been false. Even Dr Schierbeck and her colleagues would surely not claim this.
Competing interests: No competing interests