Treatment strategies for hot flushes.
BACKGROUND
Vasomotor symptoms are the most common complaints for which menopausal women seek medical care. Eighty per cent of all menopausal women will have hot flushes and night sweats, and of these 9% will have severe symptoms impacting their quality of life. Ideally, treatment should target the group most severely afflicted, and options for treatment should be tailored to each woman, since, for most women, vasomotor symptoms spontaneously resolve in 3 - 5 years. Recommendation at this time is for the shortest duration of therapy, which means that episodic review of therapy is indicated.


OBJECTIVE
To review the latest literature investigating therapies for vasomotor symptoms and to discuss their effectiveness with emphasis on placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials.


METHODS
A literature search in PubMed for 'vasomotor symptoms', 'menopause symptoms', 'hot flushes', 'hot flashes' and 'night sweats' from 2003 to the present was performed.


CONCLUSIONS
Estrogen remains the gold standard for treating vasomotor symptoms. As investigations into the physiology of hot flushes continue, centrally active drugs (selective serotonin or norepinephrine-serotonin reuptake inhibitors and gabapentin) have increased in use. The benefit from dietary herbal supplements is still inconclusive; however, recent studies have shown some mild response to soy and black cohosh.
Shen
Wen
W
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of Gynecology, 600 North Wolfe Street, Phipps 249, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA . wshen1@jhmi.edu
Stearns
Vered
V
D015914:Estrogen Replacement Therapy; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D019584:Hot Flashes / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D050484:Norepinephrine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D011788:Quality of Life; D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D050484:Norepinephrine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors; C493227:SLC6A2 protein, human