Abnormal Bleeding During Menopause Hormone Therapy: Insights for Clinical Management

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to review the involved mechanisms and propose actions for controlling/treating abnormal uterine bleeding during climacteric hormone therapy. METHODS: A systemic search of the databases SciELO, MEDLINE, and Pubmed was performed for identifying relevant publications on normal endometrial bleeding, abnormal uterine bleeding, and hormone therapy bleeding. RESULTS: Before starting hormone therapy, it is essential to exclude any abnormal organic condition, identify women at higher risk for bleeding, and adapt the regimen to suit eachwoman’s characteristics. Abnormal bleeding with progesterone/progestogen only, combined sequential, or combined continuous regimens may be corrected by changing the progestogen, adjusting the progestogen or estrogen/progestogen doses, or even switching the initial regimen to other formulation. CONCLUSION: To diminish the occurrence of abnormal bleeding during hormone therapy (HT), it is important to tailor the regimen to the needs of individual women and identify those with higher risk of bleeding. The use of new agents as adjuvant therapies for decreasing abnormal bleeding in women on HT awaits future studies.