A Woman Doctor's Guide to Hormone Therapy

The advantages and liabilities involved in HRT raise troubling questions for hundreds of thousands of baby-boomer women entering menopause: Whether to take hormone replacement therapy and increase one's risk for breast cancer or not take it and thus fail to decrease one's risk for heart disease and osteoporosis. Help in making an informed choice comes from Col, one of a group of researchers whose study on HRT (JAMA, April 1997) used a sophisticated computer model to balance its risks and benefits. Using the model developed for that study, Col has put together what is essentially a workbook with which a woman can construct a personalized risk profile. Col offers brief discussions of menopause, HRT, breast cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis, but the core of the book is charts and tables. Readers answer a few personal questions, locate their individual risk scores on a set of charts and tables, and use another set to determine how taking HRT is likely to affect their life span. Using two hypothetical women, a 50-year-old and a 63-year-old as examples, Col leads readers through what can be an intimidating array of statistical data. This approach is for those more comfortable with numbers than anecdotal reporting. (Nov.)