Breast cancer and hormone therapy

I believe that the most important influences driving our medical decision making process are our personal beliefs, both our worst fears and our fondest hopes. These belief systems are powered by our own medical histories, those of our family, the things that we read, and our personal experience. Sometimes my exam room is crowded to overflowing as Suzanne Somers argues with Dr. Susan Love in the corner as Dr. Andrew Weil tries to get a word in edgewise. Meanwhile my patient's mother and her best friend's cousin are lurking just behind her clamoring to add their opinions on the magazine articles spread out on the desk in front of us.

I would be foolish to discount these many voices; if they're important to my patient, they need to be a part of our discussion. I like to think my worst fears are highly informed ones, yet I am highly influenced by my family history of dementia and completely freaked out by the latest news on breast cancer and HRT in the latest issue of the NEJM(1). Here's the scoop:

The Women's Health Initiative randomized over 16,000 women to receive either combined postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (Premarin plus Provera) or a look-alike placebo, then followed each group with regard to health outcomes, particularly the incidence of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. The trial was abruptly halted in the summer of 2002 (what menopausal internist can forget that?) when it was clear that harm outweighed benefit with respect to heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer risk.

The study has come under attack for applying data obtained from a somewhat older group of women (average age 63) many of whom were overweight, hypertensive, diabetic, and smokers to a younger group of women just entering menopause and looking to improving their quality of life with HRT. Several studies, both trials concluded and some still underway suggest that, in fact, this latter group of 50-somethings may actually receive cardiovascular protection from the use of hormones particularly so-called bioidentical estrogen delivered in a non-oral fashion (such as via a skin patch).

I'm good with all that but note please that cardiovascular disease is not high on my to-worry list although I certainly recognize that many of my patients are at risk for same. And as losing my marbles is number one on my future frets, and estrogen is a top neuroprotective agent for aging female brains, I'm choosing to motor on with my HRT choices.

When the WHI data came out, some drug company or other provided me with graphics on this breast cancer thing. One thousand little grey female stick figures were lined up on the top of the page three of whom were colored orange. These unfortunate orange ladies were the number per year of new breast cancer victims in 1,000 post-menopausal ladies not on hormones. At the bottom of the page, another 1,000 skirted sticks queued up, 996 clad in grey and 4 in blue. You've got it: the blues were new cases of breast cancer per year in 1,000 post-menopausal hormone users. The absolute risk was huge; a 33% increase in breast cancer amongst hormone users but the relative risk small, namely one additional breast cancer per thousand users.

BUT...consider that 4th blue lady, her life turned upside down with biopsies, chemo, radiation, and a world of worry even though her chances of actually dying from that cancer are small. And if your worst fear is that cancer-induced world upheaval, then you will choose to discontinue therapy or never start it in the first place.

And now the doctors of the WHI bring us this new news to add to the evidence behind our worst fears, namely that the incidence of breast cancer which nearly doubled in the hormone users over the 5.6 years of the study decreased rapidly in the two years after the study coinciding with a marked drop in the use of combined hormones by the subjects. The busy slide at the top of this post illustrates this in the upsloping solid red line on the left which represents cancer incidence during the study and the soothing downward solid blue line on the right as fewer women got the bad news in the 2 years following the study's end. The black and white graph that follows is the interesting and contrasting data from a Scottish study that also notes the drop in hormone use over a similar time frame (the two plunging lines) but the more or less straight line at the top shows that Scottish women did not experience the drop in breast cancer rate with falling use of HRT.

Argh, what's an aging woman on hormones or contemplating their use to think? Estrogen is a growth-stimulating hormone, and thanks for the boost when it comes to bone, muscle, connective tissue, skin, vaginas, and brain. I love my brain power, I worry often about dementia, and I don't mind the youngish looking skin, so here's to hormones! But, breasts that aren't prepping to feed a developing babe don't like to be stimulated, and the more you goose your breast cells years after pregnancy is nothing but a distant memory, the more likely you are to stimulate a cancer. I don't want cancer, no not one bit, I know one woman who got cancer within 1 1/2 years of starting HRT, so to heck with hormones!

Well, Ms. Suzanne Somers staring out the cover of "The Sexy Years" like you just rolled out of a bed in which you were not alone, what is easy about this decision? Absolutely nothing. Per Dr. Morris Notelovitz, a venerable old menopausal researcher, every year a woman and her doctor should review her hormone therapy decision (and every other medical decision she makes per me!). If she is using HRT, why? If she is not using HRT, why not? What are the experts and your secretary's aunt saying? What do you believe is best for yourself?
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(1)Cheblowski, RT et al. Breast Cancer after Use of Estrogen plus Progestin in Postmenopausal Women. NEJM. Volume 360:573-587 Feb. 5, 2009.