Estrogen Protection Against Breast Cancer In Very Specific Siturations

Read all the newest reports on Estrogen use in Menopause very carefully. It's confusing, perhaps contradictory to what we've said before, and you can't just flip between blog posts and get a consistent answer! The newest information from the WHI has been released to members of the The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) specifically about the new paperr entitled “Health outcomes after stopping conjugated equine estrogens among postmenopausal women with prior hysterectomy: a randomized controlled trial.” It was published today, April 6, 2011, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. For your convenience both the article¹ and the accompanying editorial² are linked here and referenced below. In this study young women, meaning those who got hormone therapy as they transitioned through menopause and were just given conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) hadless invasive breast cancer and less coronary heart disease (CHD), all-cause mortality than older women. These are usually women who do not have a uterus, and were ths not given provera or progesterone and had different timing of estrogen. So we think there is both a timing factor and a possible formulation factor to hormone therapy in menopause.

The actual article are results of the Women’s Health Initiative Estrogen-Alone Trial, reflecting a median of 6 years of treatment and an average of 10.7 years of follow-up. The long-term follow-up and post-stopping findings for this trial have not been previously reported. The authors examined health outcomes in 10,739 women with prior hysterectomy, comparing those randomized to receive CEE treatment versus placebo.

For the overall study population, there was a significantly (23%) reduced risk of invasive breast cancer among women randomized to CEE versus placebo over the 10.7 years of follow-up. However, younger women (ages 50-59 at enrollment) tended to have much more favorable outcomes on CEE in the areas of heart disease and overall mortality. For other results, please refer to the article itself. For information on whether this can change how you should take hormone therapy: Gab with your Gyno.

¹LaCroix AZ, Chlebowski RT, Manson JE et al. Health outcomes after stopping conjugated equine estrogens among postmenopausal women with prior hysterectomy: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2011;305:1305-1314.

²Jungheim ES, Colditz GA. Short-term use of unopposed estrogen. JAMA 2011;305:1354-1355.

Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously. It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...

GynoFiles

Search This Blog