Lipid Spike Seen When Hormone Therapy Stops

ORLANDO, Fla., March 5 -- When post menopausal women stop hormone replacement therapy, LDL cholesterol levels are likely to spike, leading many physicians to prescribe statins that may be superfluous, according to researchers here. "Many of these women have no measurable evidence of athereosclerosis, and there is no clinical trial evidence of benefit or lack or benefit for these postmenopausal women," said Lewis H. Kuller, M.D., Dr. P.H., a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Public Health.
Dr. Kuller and colleagues measured coronary artery calcium in women enrolled in the WOMAN (Women on the Move through Activity and Nutrition) trial and found that only two of 34 taking statins had coronary artery calcium scores that indicated atherosclerosis.
"So we don't know if it is really a good thing to put women on statins for the rest of their lives simply because their LDL went up when they stopped hormones," he and colleagues reported at the Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, which is sponsored by the American Heart Association.
"What we need is a well designed study that will confirm that statin therapy in the absence of frank atherosclerosis will save women's lives," he said.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CDEP/dh/5175