HRT type affect heart attack risk, say researchers
October 20th, 2008
The risk of a heart attack in women taking HRT depends on the type of product they receive, researchers warn.
A Danish study of an extensive 698,098 women, aged 51-69 years, has shown that, overall, the chances of a heart attack are no higher in women who are currently taking HRT compared with those who have never used it.
But patients who take ‘cyclical’ preparations and those who use a patch or a vaginal gel benefit from a lower risk than women using ‘continuous’ preparations, the study revealed.
Women receiving ‘cyclical’ HRT take tablets of the hormone estrogen every day of the month and tablets of the hormone progestogen for seven to 10 days of each month.
Women using ‘continuous’ HRT take both hormones all the time. Continuous HRT is the form used in the widely publicised ‘Women’s Health Initiative’ trials, which triggered the HRT scare in 2002.
However, the study also showed that the younger women in the study – those aged 51-54 years – who took continuous combined HRT were 24 per cent more likely to have a heart attack than women who had never taken HRT. And the risk rose the longer they used the treatment.
Lead author of the trial, Ellen Lockkegaard, from the Gynaecological Clinic in Copenhagen, Denmark, said that the study does not change which women should use HRT or how long they should take it.
Instead, she told the medical website Heartwire that women who need HRT should ideally be given the cyclical rather than the continuous regimen.
She also encouraged doctors to treat women, especially those in the younger age group, with the lower-risk methods – the HRT patch and vaginal gels.
