Month: February 2015

Using hormones to treat menopause symptoms may increase the risk of ovarian cancer, a new study finds. This is true even if hormones are used for only 5 years. But the increase in the actual number of cancers is relatively small, the authors say. For this study, researchers combined the results of 52 prior studies. They included a total of more than 12,000 women with ovarian cancer. Women who used hormone replacement therapy were 40% more likely to develop ovarian cancer than women who never used hormones. The increased risk of using hormones for 5 years was equal to about 1 extra case of ovarian cancer for every 1,000 users, the study found. That would lead to about 1 extra death for every 1,700 users. The increase in risk was the same whether women used the hormones estrogen and progesterone, or estrogen alone. The risk was seen only for hormone replacement therapy.

Transplants of their own stem cells may help people with multiple sclerosis (MS), a small new study suggests. The study included 21 people with MS. They were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group had stem cells removed from their own bone marrow. Then they received drugs that treat MS by suppressing the immune system. Finally, the stem cells were injected back into the body. The other group received immune-suppressing drugs, followed by another drug, mitoxantrone. These treatments were repeated every month for 6 months. During a 4-year follow-up, people who got the stem-cell treatment had 79% fewer new abnormal areas shown on a brain scan than those in the other group. The stem-cell group also developed no new MS-related inflammation in the brain, compared with 56% of the other group.