Management of menopausal symptoms in breast cancer patients

Menopause is associated with multiple clinical problems in women. These include significant problems with symptoms of hot flushes and vaginal dryness; and also long-term sequelae with an increased incidence of heart disease and with accelerated bone loss leading to osteopaenia. In general, these medical conditions are usefully ameliorated by giving oestrogen with or without progesterone (1-3). This treatment has thus become common practice in women who are going through menopause, even though some data suggest that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does slightly increase the incidence of breast cancer, at least among current users (4).