Early Menopause.org

Women should be given “confident advice” which allows them to make an “informed choice” about using hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to relieve symptoms of menopause, Irish Menopause Society (IMS) president Dr Barbara O’Beirne has said.

“It is time to rethink the whole area of HRT and give women confident, reliable advice,” Dr O’Beirne told the Irish Menopause Society’s (IMS) annual symposium in Dublin at the weekend.

While it was “very hard” for doctors to “reason away fear” generated by the 2002 controversy over the drug, HRT could provide a “window of opportunity” for women in certain categories with certain symptoms, Dr O’Beirne noted.

Recent adverse media reports about HRT “couldn’t have come at a worse time” for women with premature ovarian failure which led to early menopause, Dr Nick Panay of the West London Menopause Centre told the conference.

He recalled a colleague’s comment that after the risks of breast cancer were highlighted in the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study in north America, HRT had gone from being “the universal panacea to a weapon of mass destruction” in the public mind.

Read more in the Irish Times