ReviewJournal of the National Cancer Institute2012
Changing concepts: Menopausal hormone therapy and breast cancer.
Review in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 151 citations in OpenAlex.
- Breast Cancer and Menopausal Hormone Therapy by Race/Ethnicity and Body Mass Index.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2016Pooled it
- Hormone Replacement Therapy and Risk of Breast Cancer in Korean Women: A Quantitative Systematic Review.Journal of preventive medicine and public health = Yebang Uihakhoe chi · 2015Pooled it
- A comprehensive evaluation of interaction between genetic variants and use of menopausal hormone therapy on mammographic density.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2015Pooled it
- Trial
- Mammographic Density Change With Estrogen and Progestin Therapy and Breast Cancer Risk.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2017Trial
- Sex hormone levels and risk of breast cancer with estrogen plus progestin.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2013Trial
- Trial
- Trends in menopausal hormone therapy use among postmenopausal women in South Korea: analysis of KNHANES 2005-2024.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease after cancer diagnosis: findings from 3 prospective cohort studies.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2025Article
- Drug combination-wide association studies of cancer.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Patterns of Associations with Epidemiologic Factors by High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer Gene Expression Subtypes.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2025Article
- Association of hormone replacement therapy and image-detected breast cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
- RNA-based Therapeutics: Past, Present and Future Prospects, Challenges in Cancer Treatment.Current pharmaceutical biotechnology · 2024Review
- Hysterectomy, bilateral oophorectomy, and breast cancer risk in a racially diverse prospective cohort study.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2023Article
- Pioglitazone and breast cancer risk in female patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a retrospective cohort analysis.BMC cancer · 2022Article
- Development of Anticancer Peptides Using Artificial Intelligence and Combinational Therapy for Cancer Therapeutics.Pharmaceutics · 2022Review
- Histone modification and histone modification-targeted anti-cancer drugs in breast cancer: Fundamentals and beyond.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Review
- What is behind the fear of cancer during menopausal hormone therapy in China?Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · 2021Article
- Mammary cell gene expression atlas links epithelial cell remodeling events to breast carcinogenesis.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Hormone therapy is still used by millions of women for menopausal symptoms. Concerns regarding hormone therapy and breast cancer were initially based on case reports and retrospective case-control studies. However, recent results from large prospective cohort studies and the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) randomized placebo-controlled hormone therapy trials have substantially changed concepts regarding how estrogen alone and estrogen plus progestin influence breast cancer. The preponderance of observational studies suggested that estrogen alone and estrogen plus progestin both increased the risk of breast cancer, with cancers commonly diagnosed at an early stage. However, substantially different results emerged from the WHI randomized hormone therapy trials. In the WHI trial evaluating estrogen plus progestin in postmenopausal women with an intact uterus, combined hormone therapy statistically significantly increased the risk of breast cancer and hindered breast cancer detection, leading to delayed diagnosis and a statistically significant increase in breast cancer mortality. By contrast, estrogen alone use by postmenopausal women with prior hysterectomy in the WHI trial did not substantially interfere with breast cancer detection and statistically significantly decreased the risk of breast cancer. Differential mammography usage patterns may explain differences between observational study and randomized trial results. In clinical practice, hormone therapy users have mammograms more frequently than nonusers, leading to more and earlier stage cancer detection. By contrast, in the WHI randomized trials, mammogram frequency was protocol mandated and balanced between comparison groups. Currently, the different effects of estrogen plus progestin vs estrogen alone on breast cancer are not completely understood.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.