They did not find that there was increased incidence of breast cancer in the patients taking estrogen for 22 years compared with those that did not. With no power to find significant increased or reduced risk. We cannot make good risk benefit comparisons when we are dealing with observational data. Most doctors are reluctant to treat women with a breast cancer history or a family history of breast cancer with estrogen. So you tend to get lower risk women assigned to treatment.
Breast cancer is a really difficult thing to study.
I just don't think that there is a definite answer, at least that I've seen. But I also don't think that there is a definite answer for heart disease, which is the rationale for the ongoing research. One of the other areas that I became concerned about, having read your results, were patients who had increased triglyceride levels and were to begin hormone replacement therapy. It is rather meaningless to know your cholesterol without knowing your HDL, especially if you're a woman. And it's very hard to get a cholesterol without a triglyceride.