Hormone Replacement Therapy: Breast Cancer Risk In Perspective
Janet M., a fifties-something woman, entered my office and said as she sat down, "I've read that if I take hormones I'll increase my breast cancer risk. I'm going crazy without sleep and with these mood swings, but I don't want to increase my breast cancer risk by taking hormones."
Like many women, Janet heard that a recent study, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), definitively showed that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) at menopause increases breast cancer risk. Janet, like most people who heard about this study, didn't realize that the WHI study found no statistically significant increase in breast cancer risk to women who took HRT.
When differences are not signif...
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