PROGESTAGENS REDUCE RISK OF ENDOMETRIAL CANCER

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PROGESTAGENS REDUCE RISK OF ENDOMETRIAL CANCER.

When postmenopausal women with an intact uterus opt for hormonal therapy, it is standard practice to give both estrogens and progestogens. These researchers performed a population-based case-control study to determine more precisely the extent to which progestogens protect against estrogen-induced endometrial cancer.

The authors identified 158 women diagnosed with endometrial cancer between 1985 and 1987 in Kings County, Washington, and compared them with 182 randomly chosen controls. Women who used unopposed estrogens for more than three years were five times more likely to develop endometrial cancer than women who had received no hormonal therapy. Progestogen, when added to estrogen therapy for less than 10 days a month, reduced this relative risk to 2.4, and use for at least 10 days a month eliminated the excess risk from unopposed estrogens. Postmenopausal progestogens have recently received unfavorable publicity because of a potential adverse effect on cardiovascular risk. Although this study does not directly address the tradeoffs between cancer and cardiovascular disease, it suggests that progestogens markedly reduce the risk of estrogen-induced endometrial cancer.

— ASB

Published in Journal Watch General Medicine August 20, 1991