Emergency Number
A study has found that trans-women undergoing gender change procedures increase their risk of getting breast cancer by over 46% as compared to men. The study was carried out on over 2000 trans-women and it was found that after undergoing the sex-change procedures 1 in 200 came under the risk scanner of breast cancer as compared to less than 8000 in men.
The studies that were carried out earlier have shown that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does increase the risk of breast cancer, particularly in women post-menopause. Suggestively, it would increase the risk in trans-women undergoing hormone treatment.
As a study involving 2260 women, 15 cases of invasive breast cancer came to light of that of women of over 50 years of age post 18 years on an average of hormone therapy. Dr. Martin Den Heijer from Amsterdam University Medical Centre says that the issues and side effects of hormone therapy are knowns are discussed also with the people who undergo treatment.
Though the risk for naturally born women is one-third less, the experts from the Netherlands said that not only the patients but even the doctors needed to be aware of the fact that injections of female hormones do have an increased threat.
In Britain, there has been a drastic rise in the number of operations and it’s around 250 per year presently as compared to 54 around 2000. The researchers were unclear though if some of the cases were genetic or due to lifestyle because one of their transgender woman studies did carry the BRCA gene mutation that leads to breast cancer. Besides, it also showed that transgender men were at a considerably lower risk as compared to the female population. The study that determined the same involved 1229 trans men of which four had invasive breast cancer have diagnosed at 47 years post 15 years of hormone treatment.
