Hormone Rx May Protect Women With Breast Cancer Gene

Women who had used HRT at some point in their lives had a 42 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer compared with women who had never used hormone therapy, the researchers found.

Women who had undergone surgical menopause seemed to experience a greater risk reduction than women who had undergone natural menopause, the team noted.

It's not clear what mechanism is at play here, except that women with BRCA mutations are more likely to develop estrogen-receptor negative cancers, which are not fueled by estrogen.

A second study in the same issue of the journal describes a model, the preoperative endocrine prognostic index (PEP), which predicts the risk of relapse in women who have breast cancer.

This information should help clinicians identify appropriate treatments for individual patients, said researchers led by Matthew Ellis, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

More information

There's more on the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutations at the National Cancer Institute.

SOURCES: Steven Narod, M.D., chair, breast cancer research, Women's College Hospital, Toronto; Jay Brooks, M.D., chairman of hematology/oncology, Ochsner Health System, Baton Rouge; Prepared statements of Amos Pines, M.D., immediate past president, International Menopause Society (IMS), and Regine Sitruk-Ware, M.D., secretary general, IMS; Sept. 23Journal of the National Cancer Institute