Abstract 11380: Hormone Replacement Treatment in Early Postmenopausal Women Reduces Cardiovascular Events - A Randomized Controlled Study

Objective: To investigate the long-term effect of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on cardiovascular outcome. Methods: From 1990 to 1993, 1006 women were enrolled and randomly allocated to receive either HRT or no treatment in the Danish Osteoporosis Prevention Study (DOPS). The women were healthy, Caucasian, aged 45-58 years, recent postmenopausal (PM) or having perimenopausal symptoms in combination with PM serum FSH values. Hysterectomized women were included if aged 45-52 years, provided PM serum FSH. In the HRT group women with intact uterus was treated with varying cyclic doses of estradiol and norethisterone acetate. Hysterectomized women received 2 mg estradiol/day. After 11 years the randomized study was stopped due to other studies showing an excess risk of breast cancer with HRT, but all patients were followed for up to 16 years. The primary endpoint was a combination of mortality, heart failure and myocardial infarction (MI). Comparison of the 2 randomized groups was tested in an unadjusted C...