Hormone therapy lifts lung cancer death risk-study

ORLANDO, Fla., May 30 (Reuters) - The use of hormone-replacement therapy by menopausal women increases their risk of death from lung cancer by 60 percent after five years, U.S. researchers reported on Saturday.

Doctors once thought that hormone therapy, or HRT, could protect women from chronic diseases, especially heart disease.

But use of the drugs plunged after 2002 when the large Women's Health Initiative study was stopped after finding that HRT could raise the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, strokes and other serious conditions.

Tobacco smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer. About 85 percent to 90 percent of lung cancer deaths are directly caused by smoking, according to the American Cancer Society.

Among smokers, the use of HRT could be particularly problematic because they already have an increased risk of developing disease, researchers said.

"Women almost certainly shouldn't be using combined hormone therapy and tobacco at the same time," said Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, a medical oncologist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and lead author of the study, which analyzed data from the Women's Health Initiative.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in U.S. women.

The trial studied the use of Wyeth's WYE.N combined estrogen/progestin hormone-replacement therapy, Prempro.

Since 2001, sales of Wyeth's hormone products have plunged by about 50 percent to around $1 billion a year, and the bulk of sales are now estrogen-replacement drug Premarin and cream formulations, said Joseph Camardo, head of medical affairs at Madison, New Jersey-based Wyeth.