Break From Hormone Therapy Doesn't Improve Mammograms
Saturday, June 6, 2009 - 22:35
in Health & Medicine
It's the downside of not needing to wear a bra: Having "dense" breasts is the biggest risk factor for breast cancer, aside from age. Postmenopausal hormone therapy makes breasts denser -- and harder to "read" on mammograms. So some women take a short hormone break before getting screening mammograms. Now the first large-scale randomized controlled trial of this practice shows it doesn't actually lower women's risk of being called back afterward for unnecessary extra breast imaging.