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Hormone Therapy Does Not Affect Age-Related Vision Loss
Jul 12, 2006 - 5:59:00 AM, Reviewed by: Dr. Priya Saxena
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"As an exception, a possible protective effect was found for soft drusen or neovascular AMD in relation to combined equine estrogens plus progestin."
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By Archives of Ophthalmology,
Postmenopausal hormone therapy does not appear to increase or decrease the overall risk of AMD among women, although combination hormones may slightly reduce the chances of developing certain risk factors or types of the condition, according to a report in the July issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Mary N. Haan, M.P.H., Dr.P.H., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues studied 4,262 women age 65 years and older who were part of the Women's Health Initiative Sight Exam Study, part of the larger Women's Health Initiative clinical trial of hormone therapy. Of those, 1,627 were in the estrogen-only group of the study, with 48.1 percent taking hormones and 51.9 percent taking placebo. The other 2,635 women were in the combination hormone trial; 52.3 percent of those participants were taking estrogen plus progestin pills and 47.7 percent received placebo. Participants underwent eye assessments and retinal photography at the beginning of the study, between April 2000 and June 2002.
After an average of five years of follow-up, 21 percent of the women had developed AMD. Neither combination nor estrogen-alone therapy was found to be associated with developing AMD. Among women in the combination trial only, active hormone therapy was associated with a slightly reduced risk of developing soft drusen-deposits in the eye that may precede AMD-and also lower odds of having neovascular AMD, a less common form of the condition in which blood vessels grow underneath the retina, impairing vision.
"We conclude that treatment with hormones does not influence the occurrence of early AMD," the authors conclude. "As an exception, a possible protective effect was found for soft drusen or neovascular AMD in relation to combined equine estrogens plus progestin." 
- July issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Arch Ophthalmol. 2006;124:988-992
The WHI program is supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (this study is an ancillary study to the WHI CT and Observational Study); and support for the evaluation of macular degeneration in women recruited into the WHISE Study was provided by Wyeth Ayerst Laboratories. Dr. Musch has been a consultant to Iridex, Inc., and MacuSight, Inc.
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