Advances in vasomotor symptom treatments
Transcript: Menopause and VMS: Unmet needs
Dr Sheryl Kingsberg
All transcripts are created from interview footage and directly reflect the content of the interview at the time. The content is that of the speaker and is not adjusted by Medthority.
In general, currently, women are not being asked or treated with regard to peri- and postmenopausal symptoms. For many clinicians who, or grew up with the initial results of the Women's Health Initiative, they've shied away from thinking about hormone therapy. And therefore, women who come in, they're not asking about menopausal symptoms and/or they're not offering hormone therapy as an option, so many women are going untreated.
Many women are not comfortable taking hormone therapy and/or they don't want to be taking antidepressants with potential side effects. Or they're thinking, "Why am I taking an antidepressant when really, my symptoms are vasomotor symptoms?" Or, "Why can't I have a treatment that addresses both my sleep problems and my vasomotor symptoms," right? Because they are not necessarily tied together. Or, "My mood symptoms".
And there are other symptoms related to menopause that are also very common that often don't get addressed. For example, lack of sexual desire, which can happen in peri- and post-menopause. GSM, genital urinary syndrome of menopause, which local hormone therapies are very effective in treating, but many women are not aware that local means there's no systemic absorption. Or clinicians are not asking about genital urinary symptoms, right? "Are you having hot flashes, night sweats? No? Okay." And then they move on and they're not addressing those GSM symptoms. Joint pain, very common in peri- and post-menopause, often not asked about, but one of the most significant symptoms that create burden, right?
So there are many symptoms beyond VMS that just get... are invisible and don't get addressed. So there's many unmet needs from the current therapies, and also basically because clinicians are not aware of the constellation of symptoms, nor are women. So they're not necessarily seeking help. Oftentimes, they don't seek help until they're really suffering. And that's finally what drives them in to seek help. And then there's a misalignment between that communication between the clinician and the patient regarding menopause symptoms.
The term menopause itself creates sort of an unmet need because the language around menopause is uncomfortable for clinicians and women themselves. And so they talk around it and therefore, oftentimes, the real problems and symptoms don't get addressed.
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