The association between exogenous estrogen use and endometrial cancer development has been well documented. Nonetheless, the hazard of estrogen replacement therapy in women with a personal history of endometrial cancer has not been well studied and, despite anecdotal evidence of its safety, is largely discouraged among clinicians.
Treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia; Treatment of Osteoarthritis of the Knee; Refractory Asthma and TNFConnection?; FDA Actions
The Womens Health Initiative (WHI) conducted a randomized trial of Calcium and Vitamin D supplementation.1 The 36,282 postmenopausal women were part of the WHI clinical trials involving postmenopausal hormone therapy or dietary modification. The average follow-up was 7 years; 37% of the women were age 50 to 59, 45.5% were 60 to 59, and 17.5% were 70 to 79.
In November the authors of the now famous FASTER trial, which was initially focused on the use of nuchal translucency (NT) in the first trimester, published one of many spin-off reports.
Patient 1: A healthy 18-year-old woman underwent medical abortion at 47 days gestation and 4 days later was seen in an emergency ward with abdominal cramping. She was afebrile and there was no tenderness on physical examination.
In the December Green Journal there was an excellent review by Ken Moise on the current status of umbilical cord blood stem cells. Since this is a topic patients frequently ask about, this month I will depart from the usual alert format to abstract this informative article.
The standard approach to adjuvant therapy in women with advanced ovarian cancer is intravenous platinum-based chemotherapy, usually in combination with a taxane. Since the disease is largely characterized by a disseminated intraperitoneal spread pattern, investigators have been interested as whether the disease may respond to therapy administered in the same route.
In a clinical trial conducted in Mexico City, 162 women with systemic lupus erythematosus were randomized to treatment with 1 of 3 contraceptive methods: estrogen-progestin oral contraceptives, oral progestin-only, or a copper IUD. Disease activity remained equally mild and stable over 1 year in all 3 groups.
Do Antidepressants Increase Risk of Suicide?; Can Viagra Improve Heart Function?; A Dramatic Increase of Clostridium difficile; FDA Actions