Post-menopausal hormonal therapy and gallbladder cancer risk

The relation between post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and gallbladder cancer was analyzed in women above age 45 years, using data of a case-control study conducted in Italy between 1985 and 1997, on 31 incident, histologically confirmed cases and 3,702 controls in hospital for acute, non-neoplastic conditions. The multivariate odds ratio (OR) was 3.2 (95% confidence interval: 1.1-9.3) for those who had ever used HRT and the OR tended to rise with longer duration. Although based on small numbers, due to the rarity of the disease, these findings provide the first direct epidemiological evidence of an association between HRT and gallbladder cancer.