Materia Medica Malaysiana

Health: HRT and breast cancer

Different scenario here

In her presentation, Dr Yip stressed that the WHI study was done on American women and therefore Malaysian women should not be unduly worried, as we cannot apply the same findings with our own specific epidemiological differences.

According to the WHI study, the breast cancers detected in the HRT group were 2mm larger – the mean tumour size in the HRT group is 1.7cm compared to 1.5cm in the placebo group.

Dr Yip says that most breast cancer patients here come in at a much later stage; 40 per cent of Malaysian women come in with a tumour averaging 4.5cm, or stage four breast cancer.

According to the Malaysian National Cancer Registry (NCR), 4,337 women in Malaysia were diagnosed with breast cancer last year. Of these, 52 per cent were women below 50 years old.

Over one third, or 1,557, of breast cancer cases are in the pre-menopausal age group of 40 to 49, while 1,242 cases were in the 50 to 59 years age group, and the numbers get progressively less in Malaysian women above 60.

In Western societies, the incidence is the exact opposite with the breast cancer rates climbing in tandem with their increasing age after 50.

Dr Yip explained: “We do not get so many patients in the menopausal age group; unlike in the US where 75 per cent of their breast cancer cases are in the above 50 years old group. So I would like to emphasise that a study done in the US cannot be applied to our local population.”