EVALUATION OF AN ESTROGEN, ANDROGEN, ESTROGEN-ANDROGEN COMBINATION, AND A PLACEBO IN THE TREATMENT OF THE MENOPAUSE*

Abstract

CONTROVERSY has long existed over the efficacy of the large variety of therapeutic agents advocated for management of symptoms of the menopause. The role of estrogens in the management of the menopausal patient is well established. There are those, however, who feel that the need for this type of treatment has been overemphasized (1, 2). It has been claimed that “suggestion” plays an important role in therapy, and that placebos are equally as effective as estrogens (3, 4, 5, 6). The use of androgen therapy in lieu of estrogens has been suggested (7), and it has been claimed that combined estrogen-androgen therapy may be superior to estrogen therapy alone (7, 8, 9). Hence, there exists wide variations of opinion regarding treatment of menopausal symptoms. In this report, out objectives are: To establish the comparative effectiveness of a placebo, an estrogen, an androgen, and a combination of estrogen and androgen in the management of symptoms of the menopausal syndrome.