SEATTLE — Jul. 9, 2002 — On July 9, 2002, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health stopped early a nationwide clinical trial of the risks and benefits of combined estrogen and progestin in healthy menopausal women with a uterus. The trial was stopped due to no overall benefit of estrogen plus progestin as well as an increased risk of invasive breast cancer. This large, multicenter trial, a component of the Women's Health Initiative, or WHI, also found increases in coronary heart disease, stroke and pulmonary embolism in study participants who were on combination estrogen plus progestin therapy. The estrogen plus progestin trial involved more than 16,600 women nationwide, including approximately 400 in Washington.
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's Public Health Sciences Division houses the Clinical Coordinating Center for the WHI, a 15-year, multi-million-dollar study involving more than 160,000 women nationwide, including some 3,500 in Washington. Established by the National Institutes of Health in 1991, the WHI involves 40 clinical centers nationwide, including one in Seattle that is run jointly by Fred Hutchinson and the University of Washington. The WHI, the largest comprehensive clinical study ever funded by the NIH, seeks to find ways to prevent cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and cancer, all of which have a significant impact on women's health.
For more information, please visit the Women's Health Initiative Study Web site, www.whi.org.
Media Note
To arrange an interview with one of the principal investigators of the WHI Clinical Coordinating Center or the WHI Seattle Clinical Center, please contact Kristen Woodward in Fred Hutchinson Media Relations, (206) 667-5095 or kwoodwar@fhcrc.org.
Media Contact
Kristen Woodward
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
# # #
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home of two Nobel Prize laureates, is an independent, nonprofit research institution dedicated to the development and advancement of biomedical technology to eliminate cancer and other potentially fatal diseases. Fred Hutchinson receives more funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other independent U.S. research center. Recognized internationally for its pioneering work in bone-marrow transplantation, the center's four scientific divisions collaborate to form a unique environment for conducting basic and applied science. Fred Hutchinson, in collaboration with its clinical and research partners, the University of Washington Academic Medical Center and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the Pacific Northwest and is one of 38 nationwide. For more information, visit the center's Web site at www.fhcrc.org.