HRT lowers Breast Cancer Risk

This news report talks about a new study that sounds a note of calm in the sea of concern that has surrounded recent findings on the potential risks of hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women.

According to this research, a woman's risk of developing breast cancer while taking combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is actually fairly low.

The researchers, based at the New South Wales Breast Cancer Institute in Australia, estimated the individual breast cancer risk of women up to 79 years of age, something known as cumulative absolute risk.

The cumulative absolute risk of breast cancer declined as a woman aged, as long as she was not taking combined HRT, meaning estrogen and progestin.

For women aged 40 to 79 who are not using HRT, the average risk of breast cancer is 7.2 percent (one in 14); at 50 years of age, it is 6.1 percent (one in 16); and at 60 years, it is 4.4 percent (one in 23).