NATIONAL BRIEFING / FLORIDA

Lung cancer seems more likely to prove fatal in women who are taking estrogen-progestin pills, a study suggests.

Hormone users who developed lung cancer were 60% more likely to die from the disease as women who weren’t taking hormones, according to results reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Orlando.

The findings mean that smokers should stop taking hormones, and those who have not yet started hormones should give it careful thought, said Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, who led the analysis.

It’s the latest finding from the Women’s Health Initiative, a federal study that gave 16,608 women either Prempro or dummy pills. The study was stopped in 2002 when researchers saw more breast cancers in those on Prempro, the estrogen-progestin pill made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.