Hannah Karin Wood-Kurland - PhD Scholarship 2025

Project summary:
The Impact of Hormone Therapy Treatment on Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Postmenopausal Women

What is the risk of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women who use hormone therapy? This project hypothesizes that cardiovascular disease risk is impacted by the use of postmenopausal hormone therapy and that the risk is dependent on individual patient characteristics. The project aims to investigate different administration routes, dosages and treatment regimens of systemic hormone therapy and the risk of arterial and venous thromboembolism as well as hypertension and diabetes.

Project Title

The Impact of Hormone Therapy Treatment on Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Postmenopausal Women

Background

The effect of hormone therapy on women’s risk of cardiovascular disease has been partly investigated, but as contemporary therapy includes new types of estrogen and lower daily dosages due to the option of transdermal administration, it remains to be investigated what long-term impact the use of contemporary menopausal hormone therapy has on the risk of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women.

Aim

The main objectives are:

To investigate the association between hormone therapy and hypertension, diabetes and arterial and venous thromboembolism.
To investigate the risk of venous and arterial thromboembolism in patients using hormone therapy following a cardiovascular event as well as in patients with hypertension and diabetes.

Methods

The project will use the Danish nationwide registers and recent statistical developments to emulate clinical trials using observational data.