By Cher Thornhillr

March 2008 | medwire-news.md

Urology 2008; 71: 693-697

MedWire News: An extensive cohort study has found that postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is associated with a significant reduction in the risk for lung cancer.

The analysis of more than 70,000 women indicated that women's risk for lung cancer was reduced by a significant 24% if they were currently using HRT.

"These results support the hypothesis that postmenopausal hormone therapy is associated with reduced risk of lung cancer," say Carmen Rodriguez (American Cancer Society, National Home Office, Atlanta, Georgia, USA) and co-workers.

Previous studies of postmenopausal hormone therapy and lung cancer have reported positive, negative, and null associations. But Rodriguez et al observe that most of these studies failed to rigorously take account of smoking status.

The team analyzed testosterone measurements for 2794 men aged 25-80 years who presented with ED between 1987 and 2002.

The team therefore analyzed the association by smoking status in 72,772 women from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort.

The patients were followed-up from 1992 to 2003, during which time 659 cases of incident lung cancer were diagnosed.

Rodriguez and team found that current use of postmenopausal hormone therapy was associated with a significant 24% reduction in the risk for incident lung cancer, compared with no such treatment.

The risk reduction associated with current postmenopausal hormone use was the same for both unopposed estrogen and estrogen plus progestin, the team reports.

The protective effect was further reduced in never smokers, at 44%, but was still a marked 24% in former and current smokers.

However, former hormone use showed no significant association with lung cancer, and no trend with duration of hormone use was detected.

Rodriguez and colleagues conclude: "Given the prevalence of postmenopausal hormone use and the high incidence and mortality of lung cancer, further studies to confirm this hypothesis and to understand the biological mechanisms underlying a protective effect of postmenopausal hormone use on lung cancer are warranted."

© 2008 Current Medicine Group Ltd, a part of Springer Science+Business Media