HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY AND GYNECOLOGICAL CANCER

The aim of this paper is to report the risk of development of gynecolo gical cancer in women receiving hormone replacement therapy and to rev iew the current knowledge on the administration of hormone replacement therapy following treatment of gynecological cancer. Estrogens alone may act as promoting factors for endometrial carcinogenesis. However t he addition of progenestins reduces the risk of endometrial cancer to that of nonusers. Hormone replacement therapy could be given to select ed patients following treatment for endometrial cancer. However we thi nk that this therapy should be reserved only for patients enrolled in controlled clinical trials. Ovarian cancer does not seem to be sensiti ve to estrogens, even if current literature does not allow firm conclu sions to be drawn. Hormone replacement therapy should be offered to pa tients previously treated for ovarian cancer and cervical cancer.