According to a new US study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, the chances of death from lung cancer are more in women who take the divisive hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs to battle menopausal symptoms, vis-à-vis those who don't take HRT.

HRT drugs, which heighten levels of the hormones oestrogen and progesterone levels, are taken by nearly 20 percent of women during the post-menopausal period to help control hot flushes, insomnia and palpitations.

The correlation between HRT drugs and lung cancer has recently been discovered, though doctors have, since long, cautioned women smokers against taking hormone therapy due to its association with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, ovarian cancer and breast cancer.

The study, which added a new risk factor to the rather difficult decision of using hormones during menopause transition, observed 16,600 women for an eight-year period and found that lung cancer was 71 percent more likely to be terminal in women taking HRT, as against the women taking a placebo pill.

However, the study specified that though there was no increased mortality risk from lung cancer for women between 50-59 years, the risk was quite substantial for 60-79 year old women taking HRT.

With reference to the findings of the study, University of Nebraska's Dr Apar Kishor Ganti said: "These results seriously question whether hormone-replacement therapy has any role in medicine today."