EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE

Does desvenlafaxine alleviate
moderate to severe hot flashes
in a clinically meaningful way?

Pinkerton JV, Constantine G, Hwang E, Cheng RJ; Study 3353 Investigators. Desvenlafaxine compared with placebo for treatment of menopausal vasomotor symptoms: a 12-week, multicenter, parallel-group, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled efficacy trial. Menopause. 2013;20(1):28–37.

Director of the Center for Specialized Women’s Health, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Thacker is also Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, and the author of the Cleveland Clinic Guide to Menopause (Kaplan; 2009). She is Executive Director of Speaking of Women’s Health (www.speakingofwomenshealth.com; on Twitter at @SPKwomenshealth).

Untreated vasomotor symptoms (VMS) in menopausal women remain a personal, social, and economic problem. Women with untreated symptoms have a reduced ability to work and drop out of the workforce at an alarming rate.¹ We know that menopausal hormone therapy (HT), the only treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is the most effective therapy for VMS. However, many women cannot take HT (eg, those who have estrogen-sensitive cancer or thromboembolic disease). And since the Women’s Health Initiative, many women simply refuse HT. That leaves millions of women searching for relief, with many of them turning to unregulated and unstudied therapies.²