‘Breast-cancer risk is greater with oestrogen’

Press, 22 April 1980, Page 8

‘Breast-cancer risk is greater with oestrogen’

NZPA-Reuter Chicago Women with intact ovaries who take the sex hormone, oestrogen, in heavy doses as part of postmenopausal therapy are considerably increasing their chances of breast cancer, according to a report in the journal of the American Medical Association,

The article, in the magazine’s April 25 issue, says a study of two Los Angeles, California, retirement communities showed women who took heavy oestrogen doses over long periods of time, and who had intact ovaries, were two and a half times as likely to get breast

cancer as women who did not take the drug. The risk appeared to be inconsistent at low oestrogen dosages and was undetectable in women who had had their ovaries removed, the article said.

Cases eligible for study consisted of female breast cancer patients diagnosed between October 1, 1971, and July, 1977, who were aged between 50 and 74 at diagnosis, had no previous history of breast cancer, and were post-menopausal.

These cases — 138 were found and studied — were compared with age and racematched control subjects from the same communities for the study’s results*

As one [example of In«l creased risk, the study saidj a woman undergoing natural' menopause at age. 50, who receives 1.25 milligrams of oestrogen daily for aboui three years, would increase her lifetime probability of getting breast cancer by age 75 from six per cent to 12 per cent, if no latency period for the disease js al* lowed for. The article was written bj| seven members of the partment of Medicine at thsj University of California and: the Department of Commu* nity and Family Medicine af the University of Southern! California School of Medi* cine* i