Scientists at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia have found that a signaling protein that is key to prostate cancer cell growth is turned on in nearly all recurrent prostate cancers that are resistant to hormone therapy.

Hormone therapy in early post-menopause increases sexual interest, but does not improve memory, according to a study in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Neurology.

Hormone therapy taken in the first few years after menopause does not appear to affect a woman’s memory, but may lead to increased sexual interest, according to a study published in the September 25, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Despite the huge publicity generated by a 2002 study on the potential dangers of hormone therapy for postmenopausal women, new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that only 29 percent of women surveyed knew about the study two years later.

Three genomic tests separately predict the likelihood that a patient's breast cancer will reoccur after surgery without additional treatment, and the cancer's vulnerability to chemotherapy or hormone therapy, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report at the first American Society of Clinical Oncology ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium Sept. 7-8 in San Francisco.

In women, hormone therapy is a risk factor for venous thrombosis, a blood clot forming deep inside the vein. Despite the fact that the disorder is rare, it increases exponentially during menopause and can be deadly. The hormone trials conducted thus far, focusing on proteins in blood coagulation, have not yet led to a risk profile, thereby precluding identification of women at risk.

The medical community has been debating for many years whether, and to what extent, postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) use is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer, says Professor Amos Pines, President of the International Menopause Society.

Studies in female monkeys helped raise important questions about hormone therapy that were addressed in a Women’s Health Initiative study reported last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

New results from a substudy of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Estrogen-Alone Trial show that younger postmenopausal women who take estrogen-alone hormone therapy have significantly less buildup of calcium plaque in their arteries compared to their peers who did not take hormone therapy. Coronary artery calcium is considered a marker for future risk of coronary artery disease.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have shown that hormone therapy can extend life in ovarian cancer patients, giving women a new alternative to chemotherapy.

A new study analyzing men with localized prostate cancer shows that the specialty of the physician they see can influence the type of therapy they ultimately receive.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found in a database study of women heart patients that COX inhibitors such as traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may undermine any purported protection against heart disease in participants taking estrogen therapy. The results were described this week in PLoS Medicine.