Women's Health

Study finds women diagnosed with malignant melanoma during their pregnancy or within one year of giving birth were more than five times more likely to die than women who weren't pregnant. Routine skin examinations may need to be included as part of postpartum appointments.

Eight years after the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) linked estrogen supplementation to breast cancer and heart disease, the impact of estrogen withdrawal is obvious in a less-than-obvious location; hormone-deficient vulvar disease is becoming more common, according to F. William Danby, M.D.

The use of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) in dermatology is preferable to using synthetic hormones because potential overdose is less hazardous, and bioidentical hormones are not known to be carcinogenic, says Julie T. Hunter, M.D., founder and director of Wholistic Dermatology in Beverly Hills, Calif.