Updates

In a recent publication, Lee and colleagues, using data derived from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from the US National Center for Health Statistics, evaluated changes in osteoporosis therapy in women aged ≥ 40 years, during the period January 1997 to December 2005 [1]. These office-based… Read More

I ran into a recently published and provocative article [1] by chance. Although this is not in the mainstream of [i]Menopause Live[/i] fields of interest, it certainly deals with an important aspect of adult women’s health – treatment of cancer. The main goal of chemo- and radiotherapy is eradication of cancer cells. However, we all… Read More

Shifren and Schiff have recently published a comprehensive CME review on the role of hormone therapy (HT) in the management of menopause [1]. The article addresses the following issues: vasomotor symptoms, urogenital atrophy, incontinence, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer (breast, endometrial, ovarian, colorectal), depression and mood. Each section discusses treatment options including alternative non-hormonal medications and… Read More

In a recently published paper by Renoux and colleagues [1], the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) is evaluated for a number of different hormone replacement therapies (HRT) for postmenopausal women. The analysis was made in the United Kingdom’s General Practice Research database using a nested case–control approach. The cohort of 955,582 postmenopausal women aged 50–79… Read More

It has been long debated whether the quantity of fruits and vegetables ingested is associated with cancer risk. A new article brings the results of a multi-national, prospective European study, based on the EPIC cohort, which examined this issue in 143,000 men and 336,000 women who were followed for 8.7 years [1]. Dietary habits were… Read More

[i]This issue is open to all members for discussion. Anyone who wishes to make a short comment may do so, either by leaving a comment in the Feedback box at the bottom of this e-bulletin or by sending an e-mail to jwright.ims@btopenworld.com. All the comments received will be published in the June issue of Our… Read More

The length of estrogen exposure throughout a woman’s lifetime and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) have been previously investigated with conflicting results [1]. The premise is that decreased lifetime duration of estrogen exposure increases the incidence of CHD (atherosclerosis). The Framingham study has lent credence to this hypothesis since women with premature or… Read More

A recently published paper by Waetjen and colleagues [1] reports on data derived from the SWAN study of community-dwelling, multi-ethnic, mid-life, American women passing through the menopausal transition. A cohort of 1529 women, free of incontinence at baseline, was followed through six annual follow-up visits with a self-administered questionnaire. During that time, 855 women reported… Read More

The objective of a recently published analysis of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) data on coronary heart disease (CHD) was to estimate the effect of therapy with continuous conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) + medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) on risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) over time and stratified by years since menopause [1]. The investigators intended… Read More

A recent population-based, case-control study conducted from 2003 to 2006 has reported a reduced risk of breast cancer among women using bisphosphonates [1]: 2936 incident cases of invasive breast cancer identified in the Wisconsin cancer registry and 2975 controls identified from drivers’ license lists were interviewed. Multivariate methods were used to control for confounding by… Read More