HRT Clot Risk Lower for Vaginal Creams and Skin Patches

medscape
 April 01, 2016

(Reuters Health) - Women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to ease menopause symptoms may have a lower risk of blood clots if they use estrogens applied vaginally or via skin patches, a Swedish study suggests.

Many women have been reluctant to use HRT to ease menopause symptoms since 2002, when the federally funded Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study linked the treatments containing man-made versions of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone to an increased risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke.

For the current study, researchers found that overall, estrogen-only therapy carries a lower risk of blood clots than treatment with a combination of estrogen and progestin, the synthetic version of progesterone......

 The study is observational, and can't prove vaginal estrogen or skin patches cause fewer blood clots than alternative treatments, the authors note. Researchers also lacked data to verify the exact timing of menopause, which can influence the blood clot risk associated with HRT.