Hormone Replacement Therapy or Menopausal Hormone Therapy offers significant benefits to women around the menopause suffering from moderate to severe menopausal symptoms.

The Australasian Menopause Society welcomes the publication of a complete analytic review of the evidence on the use and safety of menopausal hormone therapy. The US-based Endocrine Society has published a scientific statement “designed as a comprehensive, rigorously documented, objective, scientific analysis of existing data evaluating the benefits and risks of hormone therapy for menopausal women.”

 The Review Committee consisted of a group of experts with clinical experience from across the world including three from Australia. The report outlines the risks and benefits according to their level of evidence, level A being the highest level of evidence.

 The major level A conclusions were that Menopausal hormone therapy improves the symptoms of the menopause, including vaginal and bladder symptoms, prevents early postmenopausal bone loss and prevents hip and vertebral fractures. Combined oestrogen and progesterone therapy reduces colon cancer risk and oestrogen and oestrogen plus progestogen therapy increases mammographic density. The risks include a 2 fold risk of venous thrombosis with oral Menopausal Hormone Therapy, which is further increased when other factors such as weight and age are taken into account. Cancer of the uterus is a risk in women taking oestrogen alone but not with oestrogen and progestogen, but either therapy increases the risk of gallbladder disease. Stroke risk is not reduced in older women on hormone therapy. Testosterone as a patch developed for women improves sexual function whereas DHEA does not.

Other conclusions are of weaker levels of evidence.

 The President of the Australasian Menopause Society, Dr Elizabeth Farrell, believes this is a very important scientific review outlining for women and health professionals information about the use of hormone replacement therapy. Many women suffer the symptoms of the menopause and should be given rational and up to date information about the safety and risks of the therapy. These women should be able to be prescribed without fear that has been relayed in the past using inaccurate levels of evidence.

 The full report from the Endocrine Society can be downloaded from this site:

www.endo-society.org/journals/ScientificStatements/upload/jc-2009-2509v1.pdf.

The statement is published in the July 2010 issue of the The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

  Scientific Statement US Endocrine Society 2010.pdf 102.13 Kb