A new study indicates that breast cancer survivors who undergo hormone replacement therapy face a very high risk of the disease returning.
The study, published Tuesday in the British medical journal The Lancet, included 345 women who had survived breast cancer, with half of them receiving hormone therapy.
Swedish researchers said they cut off the five year study after only two years last December after 26 of the women receiving hormone therapy were diagnosed with breast cancer. Researchers called the number of new cancer cases worrisome.
The findings come 18 months after U.S. government scientists ended a similar hormone replacement study, saying long-term treatment increases the risk of breast cancer, heart attacks and strokes for women.
A similar British study last year found that women receiving hormone therapy had a 22 percent higher risk of dying from breast cancer.
Some information for this report provided by AP.