Breast cancer can be dormant for years

Breast cancer can return 20 years after a woman is first diagnosed, women might be told to continue taking hormonal drugs for longer than the current five years, in a bid to stop tumours returning. Scientists analysed data from clinical trials involving different women, all of whom had the most common form of breast cancer caused by the hormone oestrogen.

Breast cancet patient received pill treatments such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors which block the effects of oestrogen or shut off the hormone's supply. After five years of therapy, their cancers had gone and they stopped taking the drugs. But monitoring the women's progress revealed recurrences of the disease up to 15 years later – 20 years after initial diagnosis.

Women who started off with large tumours and cancer that had spread to four or more lymph nodes faced the highest risk of recurrence, they had a 40 per cent risk of cancer returning in a different part of the body over a period of 15 years after treatment. For patients diagnosed with small, low-grade cancers that had not spread the risk was 10 per cent.

Recent research has suggested that extending hormone therapy to 10 years may be more effective at preventing breast cancer recurrence and death, five years of tamoxifen reduces the risk of recurrence after treatment. Aromatase inhibitors, which only work for post-menopausal women are more effective.

However, some patients choose to stop the hormone treatments early because of side effects such as menopausal symptoms, osteoporosis, joint pain or carpal tunnel syndrome.This research shows that stopping hormone treatment at five years leaves women with an ongoing risk of breast cancer coming back in future.
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Hormone replacement therapy may increase risk of hearing loss

Hearing loss is inability to hear sounds of 25 decibels or under in speech. This often leads to difficulties understanding conversations and hearing certain sounds.

Women seem to be at a significantly lower risk of hearing loss than men. Between the ages of 20 and 69, men are twice as likely as women to develop speech-frequency hearing loss.

While it is not known why women tend to be protected from hearing loss, some studies have suggested that estrogen
suggested that the female hormone may protect the inner ear.

Women that are affected by hearing loss experience it after menopause when During levels of progesterone and
estrogen start to reduce.

Prolonged use of hormone therapy HT at menopause raise hearing loss risk
The study analyzed existing data on almost 81,000 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study II, making this research the first large-scale study to examine the use of HT in relation to hearing loss among menopausal and postmenopausal women.

The women were between 27 and 44 years at the beginning of the study, and they were clinically followed for 22 years between 1991 and 2013. During this time, the women reported how they used HT and lost hearing.

Almost 23 percent of the participants reported some degree of hearing loss during the follow-up period. HT taken by the participants consisted of either estrogen therapy or estrogen plus progestogen.

This shows that HT in postmenopausal women, as well as prolonged use of oral HT, correlated with a higher risk of hearing loss. HT increases the risk of hearing loss.