Trends in the use of menopausal hormone therapy in France, 2001-2023

Few studies have examined trends in the use of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) from the early 2010s onwards. Furthermore, data from the period after the release of the results of the Women's Health Initiative in 2002 are rarely reported with a distinction between systemic and local MHT. We therefore describe trends in the use of systemic and local MHT in France during the period 2001-2023.

Descriptive study using annual drug claim data aggregated at the national level from two French open-source databases.

The annual (2001-2023) number of estrogen-based MHT boxes reimbursed by the French National Health Insurance system was extracted and classified according to the route of administration. From 2014 onwards, data on the number of consumers of each estrogen-based MHT preparation, available by age categories, was used to further estimate the number of individuals using MHT, overall and by MHT type (systemic/local).

The annual number of MHT claims fell from 25.0 to 6.3 million boxes between 2001 and 2023. Systemic MHT products almost exclusively accounted for this fall, while local MHT use remained rather stable. We estimated that, in 2023, local MHT was used by 1.1 million individuals (0.44 million aged 20-59 years and 0.67 aged 60+ years) and systemic MHT by 0.5 million (0.37 million aged 20-59 years and 0.16 million aged 60+ years).

In France, the use of systemic MHT has plummeted since 2001, while use of local MHT has remained stable. Claims for local MHT now represent more than half of all MHT claims in France.