Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) use associated with menopause can lead to the development of asthma in women, a large Danish study has found.
The observational study, published in Chest, comprised 379,649 women 40-65 years from the Danish National Patient Register – 34,533 with a new diagnosis of asthma between 1995 and 2018 and 345,116 controls without asthma.
An asthma diagnosis was defined as initiation of inhaled corticosteroids including two redeemed prescriptions within two years. Cases of COPD, defined as use of LAMA, LABA or LAMA plus LABA, were excluded.
The study found the prevalence of HRT use of any kind in the asthma group was 34.4% compared with 24.2% in the control group (P < .001).
“Women who were receiving active HRT had an adjusted HR of 1.63 (95% CI, 1.55-1.71; P < .001) of new asthma developing compared with those who were not receiving therapy,” the study said.
The median time from initiation of HRT to asthma diagnosis was 862 days.
“When we stratified the analysis into the subtypes of active HRT, we found that oestrogen as monotherapy and in combination with progesterone increased the HR of new asthma, whereas monotherapy with progesterone decreased the HR of new asthma (P < .001).”
The study also found that termination of active HRT was associated with subsequent discontinuation of asthma treatment (adjusted HR 2.12; 95% CI, 1.96-2.37; P < .001).