Is Timing Everything? A Meeting Report of the Society for Women's Health Research Roundtable on Menopausal Hormone Therapy

Abstract

The Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR) is a national, nonprofit organization based in Washington DC that is dedicated to transforming women's health through science, advocacy, and education. For more than 10 years, women and the physicians who treat them have been concerned about the safety of menopausal hormone therapy, largely since the early termination of two large federally funded studies. Considerable confusion remains despite decades of accumulated evidence from observational studies, clinical trials, and meta-analyses. In November 2012, SWHR convened 18 of the foremost experts within the field for a roundtable event to discuss the collective evidence related to the risks and benefits of hormone therapy. This report includes a synopsis of those discussions, the clinical statements that were generated and agreed upon, and the research recommendations suggested by the assembled experts.