Summary and conclusionsVacuum curettage was performed on 348 women who had received various regimens of oestrogen treatment for an average of 9 7 months for climacteric symptoms. In 62 cases (18%) the specimens were unsatisfactory for histological assessment; among the remainder, however, they showed a normal endometrium in 257 cases (90%), cystic hyperplasia in 21 (7%), adenomatous hyperplasia in 7 (2%), and endometrial adenocarcinoma in one.Cyclical unopposed oral oestrogen treatment (98 cases) was associated with a 12% incidence of endometrial hyperplasia, but among those given an additional fiveday course of progestogen in each cycle (37 cases) the incidence was only 8%. No case of hyperplasia occurred among 102 women taking regimens including 10 or 13 days of progestogen. Among women treated with subcutaneous oestradiol implants and monthly five-day courses of oral progestogen (50 cases) there was a 28% incidence of hyperplasia including the one case of carcinoma, though some of those with hyperplasia may not have taken the full course of progestogen. Regular withdrawal bleeding during treatment was associated with a lower incidence of endometrial hyperplasia (6%) than unscheduled breakthrough bleeding (28%), but the one patient with carcinoma had experienced regular bleeding only.

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A retrospective study of the complications of cone biopsy showed that among 9 15 women examined between t h e years 1976 and 1982, 121 (13%) had primary or secondary haemorrhage, 153 (17%) cervical stenosis and 39 (4%) subsequent infertility or an abnormal pregnancy. Cervical stenosis was commonest among women who had had long cones removed. Stenosis occurred more often in the group of women who had been assessed by colposcopy before operation but this was due t o the fact that prior colposcopy selected a favourable group of patients with lesions of limited extent that were susceptible to treatment by local destructive therapy, so that prior colposcopic assessment resulted in the removal of longer cones.

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Summary and conclusionsA prospective study of 745 women receiving different regimens of hormone treatment for the cimacteric for a total of 21 736 months was performed. There was a lower incidence of endometrial hyperplasia in biopsy specimens in the women receiving cyclical low-dose oestrogen by mouth than in those receiving cyclical high-dose oestrogen by mouth. The incidence of abnormalities in the women receiving sequential oestrogen and progestogen was lower than in either of these two groups. Among the women receiving subcutaneous oestrogen implants the incidence was higher still, but over half of the abnormal specimens were from women who had not taken their progestogen. The incidence of hyperplasia fell with longer courses of progestogen, and no hyperplasia was found in patients taking progestogen for over 10 days each month.The incidence of adenomatous and atypical hyperplasia is significantly reduced by a progestogen when taken for 10 or more days monthly. The absence of vaginal bleeding or of a regular bleeding response does not guarantee histologically normal endometrium in patients taking oestrogens without progestogen.