A HAMPSHIRE woman is warning other meno-pausal females to resist taking hormone replacement therapy after she developed cancer.

She voiced her fears in the wake of the latest study that showed HRT could have contributed to the death of 1,000 women from ovarian cancer since 1991.

Sue Steel was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2005 and previous studies have found links with HRT and an increased risk of breast and womb cancer.

"I do wish I had not bothered with the HRT because I might not have lost my breast if I had put up with the hot flushes," she said.

"Personally I believe HRT was to blame for my cancer and I wish I had taken alternative treatments to stop the symptoms of the menopause.

"This latest report is very worrying, especially because ovarian cancer is so difficult to detect.

"I found a lump, my breast was removed and I have been able to get on with my life - with ovarian cancer it is so much more dangerous," she said.

Sue, 54, took HRT on and off for five years. She would come off the hormone treatment but ended up going back to it when the hot flushes became unbearable.

"They were awful. The flush starts from your feet up and goes right through your body. You end up with a bright red face - it's so uncomfortable and they can last up to ten minutes.

"Before I found the lump in my breast I had come off the HRT, the hot flushes had finally stopped and I was feeling so much better.

"I would urge any women to stay off HRT and persevere with the hot flushes because they do stop in the end.

"The ironic thing is that I am on the drug Tamoxifan now to stop the cancer coming back and as a consequence I have hot flushes," she said.

New findings from the Million Women Study suggest that HRT use in the UK resulted in 1,300 extra cases of ovarian cancer between 1991 and 2005. Of these women, 1,000 died of the disease.

The death toll estimate emerged from the biggest investigation of links between cancer and HRT ever undertaken.

The re-search indicates that a woman's risk of suffering ovarian cancers returns to normal within a few years of giving up HRT.

This means that over a period of five years there is likely to be one extra case of ovarian cancer among every 2,500 women receiving hormone replacement therapy.

For every 3,300 women on HRT, there is estimated to be one additional death from ovarian cancer.

Professor Valerie Beral, director of Cancer Research UK's epidemiology unit at Oxford University, said: "The results of this study are worrying because they show that not only does HRT increase the risk of getting ovarian cancer, it also increases a woman's risk of dying of ovarian cancer.

"This study, along with our previous research, clearly demonstrates the cancer risks of taking HRT."

A spokesman for Southampton Primary Care Trust said: "We urge women not to stop taking HRT. Anyone concerned about the report should visit their GP to discuss their treatment."

In the past HRT was widely prescribed in the belief that it protected against heart disease and the bone thinning disease osteoporosis, which commonly affects post-menopausal women.

Fears about its health risks have led to a sharp drop in its use both in the UK and elsewhere.

Women in the UK are now advised to take HRT for as short a time as possible and doctors no longer prescribe it as a first-line treatment for osteoporosis.

According to the GP Research Database, the number of women using HRT halved from two million in 2002 to one million in 2005.