Estrogen Therapy Linked to Ovarian Cancer

But the risk is still very slight, doctors say

By Adam Marcus
HealthDayNews Reporter

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TUESDAY, July 16 (HealthDayNews) -- A new study has found that menopausal women who take the hormone estrogen face a slightly increased risk of ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is a rare disease, occurring in about one in 10,000 women, or about 16,000 a year in the United States. The researchers say estrogen therapy might raise that figure to two or three women per 10,000.

The extra risk seems to accompany only estrogen therapy, and not the combination of estrogen and progestin. However, the scientists speculate they might have detected such an effect if they had looked at more women taking these two drugs. Progestin is used to block the cancer-causing effects of estrogen on the uterus, and the combination is typically taken by women who have not had their uterus removed in a hysterectomy.

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The latest findings add to the turbulence left by the halting in May of a major hormone replacement trial -- part of the massive Women's Health Initiative -- after scientists found the combination of estrogen and progestin caused a small but detectable rise in the risk of invasive breast cancer, as well as stroke, heart attacks and blood clots.

Another arm of the Women's Health Initiative, looking at estrogen therapy alone, is ongoing.

Some experts say the new results, published in tomorrow's Journal of the American Medical Association, are less alarming than meets the eye.

"This will not change how I take care of menopausal patients," says Dr. Steven Goldstein, an obstetrician at New York University School of Medicine.

Unlike the Women's Health Initiative, which was designed to explore the effects of hormones, the most recent work was an observation of a large pool of women. These so-called "observational studies" are like epidemiological fishing expeditions, and can't prove cause-and-effect. Scientists therefore consider them less definitive than randomized, controlled trials -- such as the Women's Health Initiative -- in which researchers account for many potentially confounding variables and characteristics of the volunteers.

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