Heightened Risk for Lung Cancer Death Linked to Hormone Therapy

Orlando, FLA hormone therapy that is already long suspected of increasing the risk of breast cancer in women has now been cited for increasing the risk of death from lung cancer, according to a new analysis of an old study discontinued in 2002.

At issue is hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women. The initial results of the Women's Health Initiative study, in which study participants took either Prempro (estrogen and progestin) or a placebo, determined that the hormone replacement therapy increased the risk of breast cancer. The study was halted in 2002.

However the data remains. According to a recent article in the New York Times researchers dug into the data anew and mined the results for perspective on the effects of hormone replacement therapy on lung cancer.

The results, while not earth shattering are said to be statistically significant as it relates to deaths from lung cancer, if not the emergence of lung cancer itself. Data was analyzed over the 5.5 years that women took either Prempro or a placebo and for more than two years thereafter.

According to the analysis there were 96 incidents of non-small-cell lung cancer—considered the most common form—among the approximately 8,000 women who used Prempro in the study. This, when compared with 72 cases of lung cancer among a similar number of study participants who took the placebo.

The difference is considered not statistically significant. However unlike the incidence of lung cancer, what IS considered statistically significant is the death rate from lung cancer within the study: 67 deaths among users of Prempro hormone therapy vs. 39 who took the placebo.

There are those who don't necessarily agree with the conclusions. Among them is Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. In his view, according to comments published in the New York Times, there is some doubt as to the statistical significance of the results. Among smokers, 3.4 percent of hormone therapy patients died from lung cancer compared with 2.3 percent among the placebo group.

As for study participants who never smoked, 0.2 percent of hormone therapy patients died from lung cancer vs. 0.1 percent of participants taking the placebo. Dr. Brawley maintains he is not convinced the results were not due to chance given the observation that while there was a meaningful difference in the number of deaths, there was not a meaningful difference in the number of cases.

However that view is not shared by everyone. Dr. Rowan Chlebowski is with the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in California and served as the lead author of the study. While presenting the study results at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando over the weekend, Dr. Chlebowski warned that patients currently on hormone therapy should avoid smoking.

"We shouldn't be using both combined hormone therapy and tobacco at the same time," he said.

It should be noted that hormone therapy is not nearly as commonplace as it once was given the now well-known concern over the risk for breast cancer. Now, with an increased risk for dying of lung cancer researchers caution patients continuing on hormone therapy that they should not smoke.

Any menopausal woman who may have developed lung, or breast cancer while taking Prempro hormone therapy may be well advised to consult at attorney.