Changes to This Summary (10/05/2012)
The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.
Added Gail et al. as reference 19.
Added text about the randomized trial component of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI); the trial was terminated early because overall health risks exceeded benefit and extended follow-up of the women showed higher breast cancer-specific mortality for the hormone therapy group compared with those randomly assigned to receive placebo.
Added text about an extended follow-up of WHI participants who were randomly assigned to receive active intervention with conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) or placebo that found breast cancer mortality was statistically significantly lower in the CEE group than in the placebo group; among the subset of women in the WHI trial who initiated estrogen-only therapy within the first 5 years of onset of menopause, neither an excess nor decreased risk of developing breast cancer was observed (cited Anderson et al. as reference 39).
Added text about the evidence from the WHI trial compared with the evidence from observational studies that suggest an increased risk of developing breast cancer associated with estrogen-only postmenopausal hormone therapy; factors that may explain the disparate findings of the association between estrogen-only use and the risk of developing breast cancer include an imbalance in the prevalence of routine screening between users and nonusers of hormones, and gap time between the onset of menopause and the first use of postmenopausal hormone therapy (cited Chlebowski et al. and Prentice et al. as references 42 and 43, respectively).
This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Screening and Prevention Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.
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