Overview
- Researchers analyzed 1,352 menopausal BRCA variant carriers in 676 matched pairs, with follow-up beginning at first therapy use and averaging 5.6 years.
- Incident breast cancer was lower with menopausal hormone therapy than without it (12.9% vs 18.9%), corresponding to an overall hazard ratio of 0.48.
- Estrogen-only regimens showed the strongest inverse association with risk (HR 0.37), while estrogen plus progestogen showed no significant effect (HR 0.94).
- No meaningful differences emerged between BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers, and none of the 43 women on conjugated estrogen plus bazedoxifene developed breast cancer, though numbers were small.
- Investigators highlighted short follow-up and small subgroup sizes as key limitations, noted ongoing cohort follow-up, and placed the findings in the context of recent FDA moves to reassess black-box warnings on many therapies.