�One of the world's longest and largest trials of internal secretion replacement therapy (HRT) has found that post-menopausal women on HRT gain significant improvements in quality of life.
The results of the latest sketch by the WISDOM research team (Women's International Study of long Duration Oestrogen after Menopause) are promulgated today on the British Medical Journal website http://www.bmj.com.
The study involved 2130 postmenopausal women in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and assessed the shock of combined oestrogen and progestogen endocrine therapy on the women's quality of life. The average historic period of women in this study was 13 years after change of life and almost participants did not get menopausal symptoms.
"Our results show that hot flushes, night sweats, wakefulness and joint pains were less common in women on HRT in this age group. Sexuality was also improved," says Professor Alastair MacLennan, leader of the Australian arm of WISDOM and head of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
"Overall, calibre of life measures improved. Even when women did not deliver hot flushes and were well past menopause, in that respect was a small just measurable melioration in quality of life and a noted melioration in sleep, sexuality and joint nisus. HRT users also had more breast tenderness and discharge compared to those on a placebo," he says.
Dr Beverley Lawton, Head of WISDOM New Zealand, says: "These new data should be added to the risk/benefit equation for HRT. The quality of life benefits of HRT may be greater in women with more wicked symptoms dear menopause. New research suggests that HRT taken from near menopause avoids the cardiovascular risks seen when HRT is initiated many years after menopause."
Professor MacLennan says studies such as those conducted by WISDOM "enable the risks of HRT to be rock-bottom and its benefits maximized when the treatment is individualized to each woman".
"Early start-up side effects canful usually be alleviated by adjusting the treatment," he says. "For most women with significant menopause symptoms the benefits of HRT outweigh the risks. The latest analyses of the main semipermanent randomized control trial of HRT (The Women's Health Initiative) shew that breast cancer is not increased by oestrogen-only HRT and is just increased in women exploitation combined oestrogen and progestin HRT afterward seven age of utilisation. This increased risk is less than 0.1% per year of use.
"If a woman feels that HRT is needed for quality of life, then doctors privy find the safest regime for her. She fanny try going off HRT every 45 years, and can then make an informed pick about whether she takes and continues HRT."
The WISDOM research is independent of the pharmaceutical industry and has been funded by UK, Australian and New Zealand government research bodies.
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