Menopausal hormone therapy in the cancer survivors

Hyo Jeong Ahn; Kyu Ri Hwang

doi:10.5124/jkma.2019.62.3.160

J Korean Med Assoc > Volume 62(3); 2019 > Article

Ahn and Hwang: Menopausal hormone therapy in the cancer survivors

Focused Issue of This Month

Update on menopausal hormone therapy

Journal of the Korean Medical Association 2019; 62(3): 160-166.

Published online: March 19, 2019

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2019.62.3.160

Menopausal hormone therapy in the cancer survivors

Hyo Jeong Ahn

, Kyu Ri Hwang

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Seoul Metropolitan Government-Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Kyu Ri Hwang. orangemd@snu.ac.kr

Received February 15, 2019 Accepted March 11, 2019

Korean Medical Association

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Due to advances in the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, many women survive long after treatment, and therefore express concerns about the impact of estrogen deficiency on their quality of life. Cancer treatment can induce menopause through surgical removal of the ovaries, chemotherapy, or radiation. Women who undergo induced menopause usually experience more sudden and severe menopausal symptoms, including vasomotor symptoms, psychological symptoms, genitourinary symptoms, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis. Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) is especially important in women younger than 40. In this review, we consider the role of MHT after the diagnosis of breast, gynecologic, colorectal, stomach, liver, lung, and hematologic cancers. MHT is advantageous in endometrial cancer type I, cervical squamous cell carcinoma, colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, and hematologic malignancies. However, MHT is not recommended for use in breast cancer, endometrial stromal sarcoma, hormone receptor-positive gastric cancer, and lung cancer survivors because it is linked to an increased risk of cancer recurrence. Depending on the type of cancer, clinicians should recommend that cancer survivors receive appropriate MHT in order to reduce vasomotor symptoms and to benefit from its positive effects on the cardiovascular and skeletal systems.

Menopause; Hormone therapy; Neoplasms; Survivors

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