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The researchers found that 55.5 percent of women with moderate or severe hot flashes when they began taking hormone therapy experienced them again when they stopped, compared with 21 percent of those on placebo.

For all women in the study, 21 percent had moderate to severe hot flashes after discontinuing, compared with 5 percent of those taking dummy pills.

The journal authors, led by University of Massachusetts Medical School researcher Judith Ockene, said it was unclear how long women experienced renewed symptoms.

-ADVERTISEMENT- Isaac Schiff, head of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists task force on hormone treatment, said he saw nothing in the study to suggest a change in his organization's recommendation that hormone treatment should be available to women with severe menopausal symptoms.

"Some women are going to have to take it for many, many years or else their symptoms will recur," he said.

The Food and Drug Administration now recommends that hormone treatment be used for the shortest time possible, and at the lowest dosage.

Joseph Camardo, a Wyeth senior vice president, said the new study provided no new or surprising information: "We've known for some time that (hormone treatmen...

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