A milestone study that linked hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) to breast cancer and triggered a collapse in confidence in HRT was fundamentally flawed, a new analysis concludes. But the analysis has itself come under fire from specialists in the UK and Australia.
Reporting in the Journal Of Family Planning and Reproductive Care, the investigators found that the UK-based Million Women Study (MWS), the largest of its kind, was selectively biased towards women who already suspected they had breast cancer.
Whereas the incidence of breast cancer in the MWS population was 2.8 women per 1000, in the general population it was 2.0 per 1000. The MWS also found an increased risk of mortality within three years, which was “biologically implausible”, the authors said.
Crucial...
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