HRT and heart disease: an update

Abstract

www.tugsh.com Trends in Urology Gynaecology & Sexual Health July/August 2007 At the start of this millennium, about a third of women in the UK aged 50–64 years were estimated to be current users of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and 50 per cent ever-users.1 The popularity of this treatment was driven, in part, by evidence from observational studies suggesting substantial protection from coronary heart disease among HRT users, perhaps by about a third.2 Enthusiasm for such use, however, received a severe setback in 2003 when the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) investigators announced that they were halting prematurely their randomised trial of oestrogen combined with progestogen.