Is hormone replacement therapy prescribed for postmenopausal diabetic women?

Abstract

A community-based survey was undertaken to ascertain current hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescription rates in postmenopausal diabetic women. From age/sex and disease registers linked to prescription data which covered 144,237 patients, details on 6867 women aged 50-60 years were obtained. Of this group, 1684 (24.5%) were receiving prescriptions for HRT; the comparable figures for the 537 patients with hypertension and 135 (insulin-dependent and non-insulin dependent) diabetic patients were 117 (21.8%) and 15 (11.1%) respectively. While the presence of hypertension did not affect the likelihood of being prescribed HRT (odds ratio 0.85 [95% CI 0.68-1.05], p > 0.1), women with diabetes were less than half as likely as those from the general population to be prescribed HRT (odds ratio 0.38 [95% CI 0.21-0.67], p < 0.001). These data indicate that proportionately greater numbers of postmenopausal diabetic women, even compared with those with hypertension, another group at high risk of cardiovascular disease, are denied the potential benefits of HRT.