From Presumed Benefit to Potential Harm — Hormone Therapy and Heart Disease

During the past decade, postmenopausal hormone therapy became one of the most frequently prescribed therapies in the United States, with a highly diversified portfolio of presumed benefits for postmenopausal women. The belief that hormone therapy might reduce a woman's risk of coronary heart disease contributed considerably to its widespread use. Beginning in 1998, results from a series of randomized clinical trials, including new data presented in this issue of the Journal by Manson et al. (pages 523–534) and Hodis et al. (pages 535–545), have clearly demonstrated that hormone therapy does not slow the clinical or anatomical progression of established coronary . . .