Menopause Management

Women will spend approximately a third of their lives in menopause. The loss of estrogen in menopause leads to physiologic changes in almost every organ system and can impact quality of life. Fifty percent of menopausal women will experience chronic and progressive genitourinary symptoms. More than three quarters of women will experience bothersome vasomotor symptoms: hot flashes and night sweats. While vasomotor symptoms improve over time for many women, at least 40% of US women over the age of 60 continue to experience hot flashes and night sweats that have profound effects on physical health, and are associated with poorer health outcomes and quality of life. Effective pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic options are available to treat both the systemic and genitourinary symptoms. These include hormonal and nonhormonal treatment options such as systemic estrogen and progesterone therapy, selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), and a variety of local vaginal hormonal and nonhormonal products for the treatment of genitourinary symptoms associated with menopause.