Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Women on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) who have no family history of breast cancer have the same risk of developing breast cancer as women with a family history who are on HRT, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center Study.

The study published this week in the Epidemiology journal refutes the notion that a family history contributes to the carcinogenic effects of estrogen.

“Although we know that family history is a risk factor, we don’t know yet what it is about family history that conveys the risk,” said Robert E. Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., assistant professor of Family Medicine and of Community and Preventive Medicine at URMC. “Some have proposed that it might be an increased sensitivity to estrogen, but our data did not support that notion. In fact, this study suggests the causal pathway based on family history is probably not estrogen sensitivity.”

Family history is identified as a “first-degree family history,” involving breast cancer in a mother, sister or daughter. Both family history and estrogen therapy have independently been identified as a risk factor for postmenopausal women. The Rochester study focused on whether the two risk factors together increased a woman’s risk.

Researchers used data from the Women’s Health Initiative randomized trial, which followed 16,608 premenopausal women who took HRT or a placebo pill between 1993 and 2002. The study was halted after data began to show that HRT greatly increased a woman’s risk of breast cancer, heart disease and other serious illness.

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