NAMS report.(News)

The 2003 position statement of the North American Menopause Society contains recommendations for estrogen and progestogen use in peri- and postmenopausal women:

* An individual risk profile is essential for every woman contemplating hormone therapy. The absolute risks published thus far regarding hormone therapy are small, as are the benefits for bone and reduction in colon cancer risk. These risks are likely to be even smaller than published for women younger than age 50 years who are at low risk for coronary heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, breast cancer, and colon cancer.

* Data from the Women's Health Initiative and the Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study should be extrapolated with caution to women younger than 50 years who initiate hormone therapy and should not be extrapolated to women experiencing premature menopause (younger than 40 years) who initiate hormone therapy at that time.

* For the sake of consistency, hormone therapy is now the preferred term for regimens encompassing either estrogen therapy or estrogenprogestogen therapy. Progestogen is now the preferred term for both progesterone and progestin.

* Treatment of moderate and severe menopause symptoms remains the primary indication for systemic hormone therapy.