Hormone Replacement Therapy Increases Risk of Ovarian Cancer?

Previous findings have linked the menopause treatment of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) to breast cancer.

Now, a new British study associates HRT to increased risk of ovarian cancer: women on HRT for more than five years are more than 20 per cent more likely to develop ovarian cancer.

But some experts think that the finding is an overstatement:

“If women take hormone therapy for more than five years there’s a risk of one per 2,500 women that they’ll get ovarian cancer so what that means is the risk is in fact very low,” said obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Rod Baber.

While women are not generally advised to get off HRT just because of this finding, the current advice for women using HRT is to take it for the shortest possible time at the lowest possible dose.

The study’s findings have been published in The Lancet.

Read the full report.