By Kay Quinn, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 12, 2007

A medical oncologist who specializes in treating breast cancer says he''s still not prepared to say there''s a definitive link between breast tumors and hormone replacement therapy, or HRT. But for many women who took HRT and later developed breast cancer, a recent study confirms what they already believe to be true.

"I think there''s a definite connection," said Jerri Adams, a mother of eight who began taking HRT in 1977 after a hysterectomy. She stopped taking hormones 25 years later, on the day she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002.

"Sitting in the treatment rooms, in radiation therapy talking to other patients, there were several patients just like me with no history of breast cancer, my same age and had taken HRT for many years," Adams recalled.

In December, new research added more fuel to this debate. A study presented at the 29th annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium showed that breast cancer rates dropped by 7 percent in 2003.

The drop works out to about 14,000 fewer cases of breast cancer in 2003 than would have been expected. "They looked for why this would have happened, and several reasons were explored, including less frequent use of mammography," a so-called undetection bias, the medical oncologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital explained. But, he said, that wasn''t the cause.

What many health experts noted was that from 2001 to 2003, the use of hormone replacement therapy declined by 68 percent, according to research published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The research is strong enough for many doctors to agree that HRT is a contributor to breast cancer risk and that women should carefully weigh the risks and benefits of taking hormone supplements to control symptoms associated with menopause.

More data on the year-to-year incidence of breast cancer may help settle the debate. In the meantime, Adams wants women to seriously consider the risks before beginning hormone replacement therapy.

"I''m not mad or angry or anything like that," Adams said. "I just think women should have all the answers before they''re put on this."