What Doctors Don't Tell YouAll British GPs are being urged to be more proactive in their prescribing of hormone replacement therapy to women patients.
Rather than wait for the women to come to them, doctors should trawl through their patient records to identify likely candidates for HRT, according to guidelines put out to all GPs from menopause specialists on behalf of the Scottish Office’s Clinical Resource and Audit Group.
Women under 45 who have not had a period for more than a year, those who have had hysterectomies, and those on long term corticosteroid therapy are particular targets for HRT.
This advice which could lead to more women in the UK ending up on HRT for longer periods coincides with a claim from US doctors that long term oestrogen use leads to a 23-30 per cent increase in breast cancer (JAMA, 24 February 1993).
Maryon Stewart
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD