Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a type of treatment that involves taking hormones to prevent or treat certain medical conditions and/ or symptoms associated with female menopause and pre-menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, insomnia, vaginal atrophy, accelerated skin aging, vaginal dryness, decreased muscle mass, sexual dysfunction, night sweats, fatigue, joint pain, and others. These symptoms are in large part related to diminished levels of sex hormones. Improvement of symptoms is achieved through hormone replacement and optimization. Furthermore, long-term benefits of HRT include reduced risk for bones, heart, brain, and different cancers (1-3).In the United States, 240,000 women developed breast cancer (BC) annually and 40,000 will die from the disease (4). The lifetime risk of developing BC is 1 in 8 (5). HRT for menopause women has been used mostly in western countries, with about 600 million woman-years of use since 1970.
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